In India’s changing foreign policy orientation, Europe is emerging as an important partner. In the middle of the pandemic, Foreign Secretary Harsh Vardhan Shringla has just concluded his tour to key European countries — France, Germany and the United Kingdom.
Foreign Minister S Jaishankar in his recent book The India Way asserts that along with ‘engaging America’, ‘managing China’ and ‘reassuring Russia’, New Delhi will also have to ‘cultivate Europe’. He also feels that in recent years, India’s “comfort with Europe has grown”. Outside India’s neighbourhood, Shringla first visit to Europe since the pandemic broke out indicates these trends. This happened just three months after a successful India-EU summit, where both agreed for a Roadmap to 2025.
Apart from the EU, all these three countries are India’s close strategic partners. We have strong trade and investment ties with them. With the purchase of Rafael jets, our military ties have also become stronger. There is a significant Indian diaspora in these countries.
Apart from traditional issues, the objective of the visit seems to brief important European capitals about India-China border tensions as well as explain and garner support for the Indo-Pacific co-operation. Shringla’s visit coincided with deteriorating COVID-19 situation in Europe, terrorist incidents in France and Austria, as well as the final stage of negotiations concerning post-Brexit EU-UK ties.
According to media reports, the focus of official meetings was on economic and health impacts of COVID-19, terrorism, trade, climate change and multilateralism. Traditionally, India’s relations with Europe have been mainly seen in the context of economic ties. This trip, however, clearly showed that to face major global challenges including Chinese assertiveness, religious radicalisation and terrorism, India is now positioning itself as a reliable geopolitical partner of Europe. Interestingly, the India-EU FTA, the India-UK FTA, the Kashmir situation or human rights did not figure prominently in open discussions.
Apart from governmental meetings, the major focus of the visit was on interactions with think-tanks in Paris, Berlin and London. While speaking at the French Institute of International Relations, the Foreign Secretary asserted that geopolitical issues are “erupting simultaneously along with the pandemic”. As a result, geopolitical repositioning is taking place in the US and China. In this context, he argued that India’s positions regarding maintaining strategic autonomy as well as effective and reformed multilateralism are strikingly similar to Europe.
The focus of his talk at the Policy Exchanges, an influential London think-tank, was on articulating India’s approach towards Indo-Pacific. For India, he argued that the Indo-Pacific is a “vast maritime space stretching from the western coast of North America to the eastern shores of Africa”. He mentioned the centrality of the ASEAN in the concept, and India already becoming a net security provider. He maintained that “a rules-based international order is achievable only with a rules-based Indo-Pacific”.
Shringla argued that India is leading in mainstreaming the expression and “more and more countries are aligning their definitions of Indo-Pacific with ours”. He mentioned recent Indo-Pacific strategies released by France, Germany and the Netherlands, and hoped that the UK will soon do the same. Since a common European Indo-Pacific strategy is still being developed, many more conversations with European partners are needed. Although Indian and the QUAD Indo-Pacific strategy is about building coalition in response to a rising China, the German Indo-Pacific guidelines include co-operation with China as an important part of its strategy.
As post-Brexit Britain is realigning its political, strategic and economic ties with its key partners, New Delhi is looking for transformational changes in its ties with the UK. This was clearly articulated by Shringla during his interactions.
Europeans have very strong economic linkages with China. However, with assertive China, including Hong Kong’s national security law, many in Europe are now concerned about Beijing’s behaviour. As India is directly facing the impact of Chinese assertiveness at its borders, new geopolitical alignments with the EU and key European countries are becoming crucial. During the post-pandemic recovery, this can be reflected in sustainable connectivity projects, diversification of global value chains, 5G and joint development projects in the Indo-Pacific.
Overall, the visit showed that both India and Europe now matter to each other not just in the context of strong economic ties, technology transfer and people-to-people linkages, but also in issues related to reforms in multilateral institutions as well as in emerging Asian and global geopolitics.
Gulshan Sachdeva is Chairperson, Centre for European Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. Views are personal.
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