For India and the EU, open source technology has been central to strategic autonomy, and the India-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), launched in 2023, is the main political anchor. Its working group on strategic technologies, digital governance, and digital connectivity treats the relationship as a full technology stack, from chips and connectivity to DPI, data, and platform rules. India Stack’s open, API‑driven model is a central reference point here that has utilised open source protocols to drive large-scale financial inclusion.
Europe, seeking to reduce its dependency on foreign technologies, is now looking at this model as a blueprint for its own EuroStack. The upcoming FTA would provide the legal framework to scale these open standards, potentially creating a democratic alternative to the global US-China tech binary.
However, several structural challenges persist. A major point of contention involves source code protection clauses. Under the India-UK Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), India has accepted provisions that prohibit the government from mandating the transfer or disclosure of software source code as a condition for market access and a similar provision may be included in the India-EU FTA as well. While this provides legal certainty for European firms, such clauses have triggered backlash from digital rights and open source advocates. Critics, while supporting the protection of intellectual property, often argue that blanket secrecy clauses may conflict with transparency goals and obstruct the ability of governments to conduct security audits, verify compliance, or promote the “right to repair”.
Data governance also remains a hurdle. While India’s DPDPA moved toward a more permissive blacklist approach, the EU still operates under the adequacy requirements of the GDPR, according to which the European Commission will determine whether a third country provides adequate levels of data protection. Without a formal adequacy decision for India, the flow of data essential for collaborative open source R&D remains obstructed.
On similar lines, there is a persistent fear of digital extractivism. The asymmetry in cross border data access regulations could allow global tech giants to harvest Indian datasets for training proprietary AI models without adequately contributing back to the local innovation ecosystem. As the two regions move from negotiation to implementation, the primary challenge will be to balance intellectual property protections with transparency and collaboration.