The European Union has agreed to open its borders to mass immigration from India as it signed the bloc’s largest free trade agreement. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said in a press conference in New Delhi alongside Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday that the bloc has agreed to a “mobility” scheme to allow for the influx of “students, researchers, seasonal and highly skilled workers” from India into Europe. The EU chief also said that Brussels will open a “Legal Gateway Office” in India to help facilitate migrants’ move to Europe.
Despite the scale of the changes agreed, reports in the legacy media generally ignored or buried the migration aspect of the agreements, reporting heavily on the concomitant trade agreement signed alongside. India already ranks among the top countries of origin for legal migration into the EU, with Indian nationals receiving the second-most first-time residence permits among any nationality in 2024, at 192,400, only behind Ukraine at 295,600. According to Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, there are currently over 800,000 Indians living in the European Union.
