European lawmakers bat for outsourcing to India

BANGALORE - Unlike US President Barack Obama, European lawmakers find outsourcing jobs, products or services to India mutually beneficial, creating a win-win situation.

Outsourcing is now seen more as a partnership than losing jobs. Success of Volkswagen cars in India provides more opportunities for our firms back home in a big way, European parliament member Barbera Weiler said here Wednesday.

Weiler, who represents the German Socialist Party, is in India as part a nine-member European parliamentary delegation to understand how this country deals with regulatory issues such as services, standardisation, customs and consumer protection.

Admitting that outsourcing of IT jobs from the European Union (EU) to India did evoke protests in Germany initially, Weiler said they were, however, becoming shriller as there was greater realisation on the benefits of such engagements.

“Protests against outsourcing to India were natural earlier as job losses were feared in Europe. It is not a price argument anymore. It has now come to mean selling our products in India and helping trade grow between the European Union (EU) and India, she told reporters at an interaction with the delegation.

Noting that the Indian IT industry had expertise in automation and was using information and communication technology (ICT) in the administration productively, Weiler said such domain knowledge would be of immense help to some of the European countries lagging behind in e-governance.

Echoing Weiler, British lawmaker Malcom Harbour said that outsourcing helped the EU countries in product engineering and design.

“The whole process has matured and aerospace majors such as Airbus and EADS (European Aeronautic and Defence Space) are doing product engineering and design work using local skills in India, Harbour pointed out.

Allaying fears over outsourcing, the British member said in a globalised world, skills had to be used successfully as they were scarce in Europe.

Outsourcing to India helps us to sustain jobs as there is a resource scarce across Europe, Harbour, who is the chairman of the committee on internal market and consumer protection in EU, asserted.

The delegation is on a two-day visit to Bangalore to find new solutions in transport, health and green technologies for the 27-member EU states.

Sharing and joint development of technologies should be encouraged. Cross border trade is given a push as we are bullish on global trade revival and economic cooperation with India, Harbour added.