- 15th India- European Union (EU) Summit through a virtual medium.
India- E.U. Relations
India-EU relations date to the early 1960s, with India being amongst the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community. Cooperation agreement was signed in 1994. First India-EU Summit took place in 2000. In 2004, the relationship was upgraded to a ‘Strategic Partnership’.
- Economic and commercial relations
- India's largest trading partner €80 billion worth of trade in goods in 2019 (11.1% of total Indian trade)
- EU is biggest foreign investor in India, with €67.7 billion worth of investments made in 2018 (22% of total FDI inflows)
- Defence and security cooperation
- cooperation on security challenges like counter-terrorism, maritime security, and nuclear non-proliferation.
- Information Fusion Centre – Indian Ocean Region in New Delhi (IFC-IOR) linked-up with the Maritime Security Centre – Horn of Africa (MSC-HOA) by the EU Naval Force (NAVFOR).
- Science and Technology
- EU supporting Mobilize Your City (MYC) programme to reduce urban transport-related GHG emissions.
- India and the EU Energy Panel 2005 and forums EU-India Clean Energy Cooperation and India-EU Water Partnership
- official mechanisms in fields such as Digital Communications, 5G technology, Biotechnology, artificial intelligence etc.
- India-EURATOM (European Atomic Energy Community) research and development cooperation in the peaceful uses of nuclear energy
- People to People Relations
- Festivals of culture (e.g. Europalia-India festival), exchanges on heritage such as yoga & Ayurveda etc.
- Horizontal Agreement on Civil Aviation in 2018 to boost bilateral travel and tourism.
- Common Agenda on Migration and Mobility (CAMM) in 2016 for cooperation on migration
- over 50,000 Indian students in various European Universities, many under EU’s Erasmus Mundus scholarship programme for higher education.
- Political
- India-EU Strategic Partnership: A Roadmap to 2025 to guide cooperation
- High-Level Dialogue on Broad-based Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) and to address multilateral issues of mutual interest.
- declarations on Resource Efficiency and Circular Economy, decided to launch a dialogue on maritime security, renewed Agreement on Scientific cooperation.
- Factors shaping India-EU relations in the current times
- Changing Geopolitical developments: EU strategy on India,2018 Impact of China in Europe and Asia (e.g. Belt and Road initiative) has pushed EU to change the nature of its partnerships in the region, particularly with India
- Convergence of interests in the Indian Ocean: Increasing Naval base race and security competition in the Indian Ocean region will impact both Europe and India as the Indian Ocean is the main conduit for global trade and energy flows. India, EU see each other as partners in securing the Indian Ocean by strengthening institutions, rule of law, and a regional security architecture
- Retreat of the U.S. from global leadership and uncertainty of US policy provided opportunities for EU- India cooperation and trilateral dialogues with countries in the Middle East, Central Asia and Africa.
- Strategic rivalry between the US and China: Both have a common interest in avoiding a bipolarized world and sustaining a rules-based multilateral trading system with the United Nations and the World Trade Organization at its core.
- Green governance: After the US exit from the Paris climate agreement, India and the EU stand to gain from a joint leadership on global governance matters such as climate change, clean energy or circular economy.
- New emerging world order after COVID-19: As EU seeks to move away from a global supply chain that is overly dependent on China, India can emerge as its most natural ally. EU and India could find a common path in ensuring supply chain resilience to reform the global system in response to health emergencies
Concerns in relations
- Stalled EU-India BTIA: differences on crucial issues such as- EU’s demands:
- significant duty cuts in automobiles
- tax reduction on wines, spirits etc,
- a strong intellectual property regime,
- relaxation in India’s data localisation norms, etc.
- India’s demands: ‘Data secure’ status (important for India's IT sector);
- Ease norms on temporary movement of skilled workers,
- relaxation of Sanitary and Phytosanitary (SPS) and Technical Barriers to Trade (TBT) norms etc.
- Trade imbalance: India accounts for only 1.9% of EU total trade in goods in 2019, well behind China (13.8%).
- India’s perception of EU: primarily as a trade bloc, preferring bilateral partnerships with Member States for all political and security matters. This is evident from lack of substantive agreements on matters such as regional security and connectivity.
- Human Rights concerns of EU: European Parliament was critical of both the Indian government’s decision to scrap Jammu and Kashmir’s special status in 2019 and the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.
Way Forward
- EU and India can work in third countries to consolidate democratic processes and build capacities of transitioning regimes through strengthening electoral and parliamentary institutions
- Establishing a trilateral dialogue with other like-minded partners like Japan or Australia and India can help in improving the EU’s visibility in the region
- Negotiations on BTIA should be concluded in a timely manner to realize the full potential of EU's trade relationship with India.
- EU and India can adopt a coordinated approach in their external actions on various shared sustainable development goals, such as global energy decarbonization, a modern resource-efficient economy with smart urbanization, and a sustainable environment based on clean energy.