India - Europe as Strategic Partners

Prime Minister Modi’s summit in Delhi with the Danish prime minister, Mette Frederiksen, is described as significant by analysts. This was apt, writes C Raja Mohan (director, Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore and contributing editor on international affairs for The Indian Express) “since Europe looms so large in the Indian diplomatic agenda today and smaller European states draw unprecedented political attention from Delhi.”


Indo-Pacific strategy by EU will have greater impact on the region

Simultaneously, “prospects for larger strategic cooperation with the European collective have opened up with the articulation of a comprehensive Indo-Pacific strategy by the European Union last month……That the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy got little public attention in Delhi is part of the entrenched indifference to Europe in India’s foreign policy discourse……..” Mohan believes that the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy is “likely to have a much greater impact on the region more immediately and on a wider range of areas than military security. They range from trade and investment to green partnerships, the construction of quality infrastructure to digital partnerships, and from strengthening ocean governance to promoting research and innovation. Defence and security are important elements of the EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy that ‘seeks to promote an open and rules-based regional security architecture, including secure sea lines of communication, capacity-building and enhanced naval presence in the Indo-Pacific’……

“As the deepening confrontation between the US and China begins to squeeze South East Asia, Europe is widely seen as widening the strategic options for the region. The perspective is similar in Delhi, which now sees Brussels as a critical element in the construction of a multipolar world.”


‘Cultivating Europe’

As External Affairs Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar puts it, India’s strategy is to “engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play”. Asked to explain his remarks on ‘cultivating Europe’, at the Bled Strategic Forum in Slovenia last month, Jaishankar admitted that Delhi did not devote adequate attention in the past to Brussels. He added that Delhi is now focused on developing a strong partnership with Brussels and engage all its 27 members — big and small — individually. Brussels has long been ready to dance with Delhi, says Mohan.


EU strategy for India to focus on four themes

“The EU outlined a strategy for India in 2018 to focus on four themes — sustainable economic modernisation, promotion of a rules-based order, foreign policy coordination, and security cooperation. At the summit in Portugal in May this year, the EU and India agreed to resume free trade talks and develop a new connectivity partnership that would widen options for the world beyond the Belt and Road Initiative. Above all, there is a recognition in both Delhi and Brussels that the India-EU strategic partnership is crucial for the rebalancing of the international system amidst the current global flux…….

“A stronger Europe with greater geopolitical agency is very welcome in Delhi. India is conscious that Europe can’t match America’s military heft in the Indo-Pacific. But it could help strengthen the military balance and contribute to regional security in multiple other ways. Delhi knows that Europe could significantly boost India’s capacity to influence future outcomes in the Indo-Pacific. It would also be a valuable complement to India’s Quad coalition with Australia, Japan and the United States.

“It was Russia that defined India’s discourse on the multipolar world after the Cold War. Today, it is Europe — with its much greater economic weight, technological strength, and normative power — that promises to boost India’s own quest for a multipolar world and a rebalanced Indo-Pacific.”

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