New Delhi: As the UK’s divorce from the European Union enters its last stretch, the European Commission unveiled a new strategy for strengthening ties with India. The proposals range from more coordination on foreign policy issues to closer defence ties and even a ministerial dialogue on economic issues.
Since the Brexit referendum in 2016, both the UK and the EU have refocused their priorities on external relations, with India among the preferred countries.
The UK had been scouting for a trade agreement with India, but formal negotiations can only start after the shape and content of the withdrawal is made public. The EU will hold a leader’s summit to consider the text of the draft Brexit deal this week.
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Meanwhile on Monday, November 20, the European Commission’s high representative of the union for foreign affairs and security, Federica Mogherini, released a “joint communication” to the European parliament and the council on “elements for an EU strategy on India”.
A day later, the head of the delegation of EU to India, Tomasz Kozlowski said that the council will endorse this paper in December.
“Sometimes, our Indian interlocutors blame us and say that the EU does not give too much attention to India. This joint communication is a clear consideration that India is very important and there is full political commitment to go forward,” he told reporters.
Kozlowski claimed that both the EU and India “have changed their approach to each other”, with a higher intensity of interactions on different fronts.
In recent months, India has worked with the European Union during the crises in the Maldives and Sri Lanka. New Delhi had encouraged EU to release a framework which threatened targeted sanctions on Maldivian officials, which diplomats believe was instrumental in holding free and fair elections.
“We have been tried and, been successful to some extent, in converting common principles to common interests,” said Kozlowski, adding that both EU and India were on the “same side of global politics”.
Some of the suggestions made in the strategy paper on India on intensify foreign policy coordination are:
- Upgrade the yearly dialogue between the high representative/vice president of the EU and the Indian minister for external affairs to a regular strategic dialogue.
- Establish regular bilateral, as well as trilateral dialogues on/with Africa, to discuss security, economic issues, as well as connectivity.
- Intensify dialogue on Afghanistan and Central Asia in the appropriate settings.
With the EU trying to build a credible military infrastructure, the joint communication stressed the importance of developing “military-to-military relations with India, including between leaders of the Indian armed forces and the EU military structures, as well as joint exercises”.
It also proposed the deployment of an EU military advisor to New Delhi, with a reciprocal arrangement from India.
Even here, several suggestions called for cooperation in third countries, especially in strengthening capacity of maritime nations in Indian Ocean and East Africa, peacekeeping training to African countries and crisis management during disasters.
The EU is India’s number one trading partner with 14% of total trade in goods in 2017. However, India was EU’s ninth largest trading partner, at only 2.2%.
The strategy paper states that India still has a “strong reliance on exports and inward investment, and reluctance to open up to imports”.
“The EU will continue to encourage India to open up its economy to strengthen its international competitiveness, benefit from a better integration into global value chains, and increase its share in global trade, to bring it more in line with its growing share of global GDP,” it asserted.
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The ongoing talks on a long-pending broad-based trade & investment agreement (BTIA) is also mentioned in the strategy paper, with the European Commission asserting that the final text should be “balanced, ambitious and mutually beneficial”.
“We are in the process of active contacts on more general and very specific issues. Let us see how these contacts will finish. But my feeling is that there is political will and trust on both sides. The question is what should be the main element of the agreement,” said the senior EU diplomat.
The document also pointed out that EU member states should encourage legal migration through various tools “to harvest the Indian talent pool and entrepreneurial spirit”.
But, increasing greater mobility of Indian professionals is also linked to India’s cooperation on irregular or illegal migration, noted Kozlowski.
The key issue here is the re-admission process, with India being slow in implementing key items on the 2016 joint agenda on common agenda for mobility and migration. “We would like a more speedy way,” he said.