On Brexit: I have always been a critic of European Union in many ways. The European Union and European Parliament, according to me do not have any connection with the people they represent. I do not know anyone, who knows, who the member of European Parliament are? Every MP who represents a constituency is directly accountable to the people. It is ridiculous to see them moving every month from Brussels to Starlsberg and it is a complete waste of time and money. I think the Euro currency is an absolute failure. Unless there is pure fiscal monetary and quite frankly it can only work in United States of Europe, which in my view is that it will never work. The Euro one size cannot fit all and it was shown in Euro crisis. How can you have Greece and Germany having the same exchange rates and the same interest rates? It is just illogical and quite frankly, the Euro should be dismantled but it is so complex to dismantle it that is why it has been kept together.
On whether UK will review on Brexit: As I said I am very critical of European Union, but on balance I think the European Union has been a wonderful institution in maintaining peace along with NATO for decades and it has also been an excellent market. It is the largest free trade zone in the world with 500 million people. It’s single market and custom union has been a huge benefit, free movement of people, free movement of goods and capital. The ease of doing business is absolutely amazing. I think people take this freedom for granted and 50 per cent of the Britain’s trade is with the EU. Another almost 20 per cent is through the EU free trade agreements which the EU has with about 50 countries around the world. The recent one being Canada and now Japan. So 70 per cent of Britain’s trade is with and through the EU. The balance 30 per cent is with the USA. So how can we think of giving up 70 per cent of trade where we have free trade agreements? To go after 30 per cent, we may never get the whole of the commonwealth nations, including India and Australia. The UK’s trade, commonwealth represents less than 10 per cent. We should be doing much more with the commonwealth.
On trade with India: We could be doing much more with India and I am sure we will be in the near future. India is more interested in getting into an EU free trade agreement than a UK-India free trade agreement. The best thing for us is to remain with EU.
On Goan-Portuguese passport and free entry of Goans in UK: This is not something which I have heard being spoken publicly. In fact, I became more aware when I visited Goa. In fact we had a first-ever Parliamentarians of Indian origin meet at the invitation of Prime Minister Modi in January and I remember meeting there a lady who is a Portuguese MP of Goan origin. She was very proud of being a Goan origin and I believe the Portuguese prime minister is also of Goan origin. It is wonderful to have two EU prime ministers of Indian origin, Ireland and Portugal. I am must say that UK will soon have a prime minister of Indian origin. I think it’s a rule to move freely in Europe if one has a Portuguese passport and people will contribute to the growth and it will benefit all. The Indian diaspora which is 30 million round the world are celebrating their success all over the world. In UK, 1.5 million strong people of Indian origin out of the total population of 65 million, is the largest in the minority community in the UK and the most successful. I think that if the Goan diaspora choose to live in Portugal or England that will be a benefit to India and the host countries in the long run.
On his beer brand. Why “Cobra”?: We could have chosen any name for the beer as we came with an arrangement with Mysore Breweries and they said that you can use whatever brand name you want to, and we wanted to choose a name that would connect with India but not in an obvious way. So we wanted a cool and contemporary and yet a name which would give a feeling that it has been around for some time. And a wonderful thing about “Cobra” is that people think that it has been around for over 100 years and it is only 27 years old and the idea of launching this beer originated only in 1989 and it took us only nine months to launch in market. For a beer brand it is a household name in the UK. It is short, sharp and memorable and it is worth it. “Cobra” beer is now found in 40 countries around the world, including almost all the EU countries.
On the Indian beer market: The Indian beer market has been expanding however, it could expand much more. Since it is a state subject and each state has different rules with extremes of prohibition in Gujarat and Bihar and you have different rates of duties. The main obstacle to beer market in India is its availability. There are very few licensed outlets per capita in India and is one of the smallest in the world. Half a province in China has many more outlets is more than whole of India put together. Let alone a country like UK with a population of 65 million people and the size of Gujarat has 70,000 pubs, super markets, 100,000 selling points etc. Before prohibition, in Bihar as a whole state of over 100 million people, there were only 3000 outlets where a beer could be sold. Another problem is affordability. The duties are very high in many states. If in India beer becomes affordable, India will become the second biggest beer market in the world after China.
