NEW DELHI: India is not going through a slowdown, Jean-Claude Juncker , president of the European Commission said on Friday, rather its performance is 'major' as compared with EU. "What you're calling a slowdown would be a major performance in Europe. "I don't want to raise expectations we can't meet. Once the circumstances are right, we will resume with good faith," he said.The talks have been stuck for four years on slashing of import duty on European cars and alcohol besides recognising India as a 'data-secure’ nation to enable free flow of data between India and EU.On data protection, he emphasised on India's standards conforming with those of the EU. "If India's standards of data protection converge with those of EU and for EU to recognise the conformity...conformity means various norms and systems," he said.Calling data the 'black gold of 21st century', the president said that exchange of data is involved in when Indian companies provide IT services to the ones in EU and this needs to be protected.He reasoned that because data protection is about privacy, the rights citizens enjoy offline should also be protected online and hence, India- EU should work together on data protection.

Source: Economic Times October 06, 2017 15:02 UTC