Look North West

Shringla travels to cement strategic and economic ties with Europe

- Manjeev Singh Puri

‘Cultivate Europe’ is one of the action points for India’s foreign policy, wrote foreign minister S Jaishankar in his recently released book The India Way: Strategies for an Uncertain World. The obvious reason is the economic and technological clout of Europe with a GDP (including the UK) of over $20 trillion, roughly equal to the US and outstripping China. It also has inherent capacities to contribute significantly to international peace and security and maintain a rules based multilateral order.

While India-UK ties have a dynamic of their own, the EU and its two big engines, Germany and France, are of critical importance for India. Indeed, India is bound in strategic partnerships with all three and an India-EU All Leaders’ Summit is to be held in 2021. Moreover, the EU is India’s largest trading partner and the second-largest export destination. The European Investment Bank is also now a major player in financing infrastructure build-up in India, including metros.

Acknowledging the salience of Europe in India’s foreign relations, one of the few bilateral summits held virtually by India during the pandemic was with the EU – the 15th India-EU Summit in July 2020. They not only underscored economics and Covid cooperation, including making vaccines a global public good, they decided to enhance naval cooperation, launch a dialogue on maritime security, and hold consultations on security and defense matters. They also agreed to a high-level ministerial dialogue to push the long-stalled India-EU trade and investment agreement.