When Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduling his visit to Brussels in March for the India-European Union (EU) Summit, protests against India's Citizenship Amendment Act were still ongoing, and India won a diplomatic victory when the EU Parliament deferred its vote on a motion against the law, which was moved by Pakistani-origin member Shaffaq Mohammed. The summit was deferred because of the pandemic, and now, it is set to take place in virtual format on July 15.
The world is a different place than what it was before, and diplomats on both sides may not have to work at managing the right environment for the visit. While the EU is keen on more intensive teaming with India in a globescape with new realities, the European Parliament is still busy censuring India. Its sub-committee on human rights had, in May, written to Home Minister Amit Shah about its concerns over the arrest of activists Gautam Navlakha and Anand Teltumbde. However, virtual summits lack the public exposure that high-optic visits have. The European Parliament is not part of the summit, and therefore, there is no interaction with them at the event.
Sources say that the new members of the EU commission, and the EU council, both of which took over a few months ago, are eager to engage with India. At the summit on Wednesday, Modi will interact with EU council president Charles Michel, EU commission Ursula von der Leyen and high representative Josep Borrell Fontelles. The EU is at a stage when it wants to be more than a trading bloc, it sees a greater participation for itself in global affairs, and is seeking out the right countries to partner with.
India is high on the EU's list, given the potential for enhancing trade—already there is a $100 billion trade in supplies, and another 40 billion in services, on both aspects of which the balance is in favour of India. Despite periodic noises about human rights violations in India, the EU does see India's values of democracy and emphasis on following international laws as favourable.
Sources say that the lack of global leadership during the pandemic, with Russia, China and the US not rising to the occasion, created a vacuum that others might like to fill. The EU has already taken a leadership role in the health aspect of managing the pandemic, having raised 16 billion euros, part of which it has given to the World Health Organisation.
The discussions therefore will be on three main issues—taking forward the bilateral with India, the role of multilateral organisations like the G-20, as well as COVID-19 and the various aspects of health and economic revival related to it. China is likely to be a big factor of the discussions, whether by name or by allusion alone, with the EU and India both seeing a complementarity in loosening the economic stronghold of the dragon. India is now on a drive for ‘Aatmanirbhar’, and is looking for new partners to ease its dependency on China for materials and manufacturing goods.
The EU, similarly, has been making noises about “economic sovereignty”, “strategic autonomy” and “diversification of supply chains”. Could this new sentiment lead to a revival of the Broad Based Trade Agreement (BBTA)—envisaged as a free trade agreement and an investment treaty woven into one document, but which fell off the talking table some years ago?
