The 3rd EU – India Sustainable Business Forum Dialogue

Date/Time
Date(s) - 16/06/2026
10:00 - 16:00

Categories

Closed Event

Context

A new era of comprehensive and strategic partnership between India and the European Union (EU) unlocked recently with the announcement of the EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA) and a number of accompanying measures related to trade and sustainable development on 27^th January, 2026 in New Delhi. The EU-India FTA deal is being referred to as the ‘mother of all trade deals’, especially in an environment marred by geopolitical-geoeconomic precariousness and regulatory ambiguities. Building on more than two decades of strategic partnership, this progressive partnership anchors the mutual commitment of both partners to advance structured, outcome-oriented cooperation in a complex geopolitical landscape, while reaffirming their commitment to work together as trusted and reliable partners to advance shared priorities and strengthen multilateral cooperation.

One of the key announcements accompanying the FTA was the, ‘Towards 2030: EU-India Joint Comprehensive Strategic Agenda‘[1] – an almanac for the next five years defining the EU-India strategic collaboration, enumerating a list of issues of common interest including – sustainability, clean tech, energy transition, supply chain resilience, digitalisation and innovation, among others. This document (referred hereinafter as the EU-India Strategic Agenda), is categorised into five areas of strategic collaboration between the two partners, including: (i) Prosperity and Sustainability; (ii) Technology and Innovation; (iii) Security and Defence; (iv) Connectivity and Global issues and (v) Enablers across pillars.

With these and other concomitant developments in place such as the Green Hydrogen Task Force under the EU–India Clean Energy and Climate Partnership; EU-India Resource Efficiency Initiative; etc. the European Union and India reaffirm their collective intent to achieve the goals of the 2015 Paris Agreement and to deepen cooperation on environmental protection, clean energy transition, energy resilience and circular economy.

EU-India Sustainable Business Forum

Beginning in June 2025, Centre for Responsible Business (CRB) in partnership with leading European and Indian businesses and industry stakeholders (amfori, Tata Consulting Services – Europe and CSR Europe) co-hosted two rounds of dialogues between EU and Indian businesses and stakeholders on the need and opportunity for partnership on sustainable business parleys. These discussions have been timely and well received by stakeholders on both sides, especially in anticipation of the announcements made in January 2026 in New Delhi. At both dialogues (June 2025 and January 2026), experts from both sides asserted the need for greater visibility and awareness of opportunities that stand to emerge from pursuing collaborative sustainability initiatives linked to the priorities of the EU-India Strategic Agenda.

CRB will continue to co-host these dialogues in a structured manner in collaboration with like-minded partner organisations – both in Brussels and New Delhi (under the aegis of, EU – India Sustainable Business Forum). Following up on the two earlier dialogues, CRB is interested to co-host a third round of this dialogue on 15^th or 16^th June 2026 in Brussels. This note has been developed for interested partners to join CRB as a co-host of this third EU- India sustainable business dialogue.

2.1 Objectives

The objectives of the planned (third) dialogue are as follows:

To create awareness of specific areas of the EU – India Strategic Agenda (Towards 2030)
To assess existing experiences of collaboration between EU and India businesses and related stakeholders across specific areas of the EU – India Strategic Agenda
To facilitate potential collaborative projects/ideas between EU and Indian business and related stakeholders
To identify policy recommendations for European Commission and Government of India to support effective implementation of the ‘Agenda’

[1] https://www.mea.gov.in/bilateral-documents.htm?dtl/40616/Towards+2030+A+Joint+IndiaEuropean+Union+Comprehensive+Strategic+Agenda