India and the European Union signed a memorandum of understanding over semiconductors covering teamwork in aspects of research and innovation, talent development, partnerships and exchange of market information.

Ashwini Vaishnaw and Thierry Breton, European Commissioner for Internal Markets signed the MoU.

The MoU comes ahead of the India-EU Trade and Technology Council that took place virtually last week.

Delegates present in the meeting were external affairs minister S Jaishankar, minister of commerce and industry Piyush Goyal and minister of electronics and information technology Ashwini Vaishnaw for the Indian side.

On the European side executive vice-president Valdis Dombrovskis and vice-president Vera Jourova chaired the meeting.

Under the presence of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen the Trade and Technology Council (TTC) took place aimd their visit to India last year.

The inauguration of the TTC meeting was organized at Brussels on May 16 with the attendance of all the working groups under the TTC who are working in tandem on issues such as semiconductors, high-performance computing, digital public infrastructures, clean energy technologies, supply chain resilience and trade issues.

The co-chairs reviewed the progress of the working groups since the first ministerial meeting, while discussing future plans of working with these groups during the virtual meeting.

The co-chairs lent strategic guidance to the working groups over strategic technologies and digital connectivity, clean and green energy technologies, and trade, investment and resilient supply chains to achieve TTC’s goals during its establishment at the highest levels.

The delegates were impressed by the progress made by the working groups till date particularly in the areas of semiconductors, high-performance computing, digital public infrastructures, EV batteries and their recycling, waste to energy, resilient supply chains and FDI screening, it said.

The co-chairs focused on making the collaboration pass through research and innovation to implementation over practical outcomes/projects, through more intensive stakeholder consultations before the next TTC meeting and India-EU Summit.

The MoU represents India’s and EU’s strong commitment working towards establishing robust semiconductor supply chains and work together on innovation.