European Union, India keen to deepen strategic partnership

“India is one of our four strategic partners in Asia. We want to build our relationship further to reflect the strategic nature of this partnership. We have had some difficult years behind us,” said Gunnar Wiegand, MD, Asia and Pacific, in the EU foreign service, known as the European External Action Service. 

He was speaking at a debate on EU-India relations, hosted by the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament in Brussels. “The strategic partnership is currently being shaped in a very tangible and complex global and European environment,” he said referring to the Brexit referendum and to the new US administration. “...We have agreed on an ambitious EU-India Action Plan 2020 on a broad range of common issues,” said Wiegand. 

He called for more EU-India cooperation on key global issues in the Middle East, Asia and Africa, and to strengthen trade and investment partnership, adding that the EU remains committed to a broad and comprehensive Free Trade Agreement. The top EU diplomat also called for more high-level visits from India to Brussels. 

India’s ambassador to the EU, Manjeev Singh Puri, said: “The EU and India are the largest bastions of democracy. We need to come together and work to make things better for ourselves and the world. I believe we have a vested interest with each other. The EU and India have a joint and shared interest in multi-polarity and have a shared and joint interest in discharging global responsibility.” 

Puri noted that the EU and India agreed on a strategic partnership in 2004 and underlined that the two sides are cooperating in several areas, including security and counter-terrorism. 

The last EU-India summit was held in Brussels in March 2016, just a week after the horrendous terror attacks in the Belgian capital. It expressed India’s solidarity in the fight against terrorism. 

He said the EU and India have been negotiating a broad-based trade and investment agreement for several years and recently high-level talks were held to re-launch these negotiations. An EU-India summit is planned to be held in New Delhi later this year.