Stung by the shifts in U.S. international coverage, notably on the Russia-Ukraine battle, the two-day go to by the President of the European Commission (EU) Ursula von der Leyen and 21 EU Commissioners starting Thursday (February 27, 2025) will ship the message that Europe is shoring up different companions, together with India, as a lot as they focus on the duty of resetting EU-India ties. The College of Commissioners’ journey is “unprecedented”, a EU assertion stated, as they’ve by no means travelled to any nation in such energy earlier than. According to EU officers who briefed European and India media this week, the go to has been deliberate for some months, and was introduced by Ms. von der Leyen at Davos on January 21. The coverage modifications wrought by U.S. President Donald Trump since then hang over the conferences in Delhi.
“A new push for greater cooperation, to be clear, was already identified and planned quite a while ago,” an EU official stated, including, “But the timing of this visit is, of course, particularly interesting given the global developments that we are facing.”
The European delegation comes simply after the third anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, which was marked by a second of solidarity with the Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and the presence of greater than a dozen European and Western leaders, together with Ms. von der Leyen, in Kyiv for commemorative ceremonies. The EU additionally imposed a sixteenth spherical of sanctions on Russia, even because the U.S. broke with it on the United Nations by voting with Russia in opposition to an EU decision calling for the withdrawal of Russian troops from Ukraine.
Their conferences with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and plenty of members of the Union Cabinet will coincide with Mr. Zelenskyy’s journey to Washington to signal a “mineral deal” and talk about a Russia-Ukraine ceasefire proposal with Mr. Trump, seen as a major climbdown by the Ukrainian President, even after Mr. Trump known as him a “dictator” with “4% approval ratings”. The EU go to to Delhi will even come days earlier than a rare European summit on March 6.
“One specific point that I expect President Leyen to raise in the context of that conversation is not just our support for Ukraine, but also our sanctions that we are maintaining on Russia,” the EU official stated, indicating that regardless of the setback from the U.S.’s U-turn, the EU would proceed “intensifying enforcement of its sanctions against Moscow”. New Delhi, which has rejected all sanctions in opposition to Russia to this point, and elevated its oil imports from the Russian Ural multi-fold since 2022, is unlikely to change its place, particularly within the revised circumstances.
The substance of the go to, then, will come from a restart in EU-India relations which have been considerably forged within the shade over the Ukraine battle. There has been no EU-India annual summit since 2020, though they held a ‘Leader’s Summit’ in 2021, and at the moment are making ready for a summit later in 2025. Despite relaunching the long-pending EU-India Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreement (BTIA) talks in 2022, the 2 sides haven’t made a lot headway over tariff points on vehicles, wine and spirits, and on non-tariff limitations, officers conceded, and can hope for a political push throughout the Delhi go to forward of the subsequent spherical of commerce talks on March 10-14 in Brussels.
The go to will start with a gathering of the Trade and Technology Council (TTC), which is anticipated to work on aligning AI insurance policies in addition to cooperation on semiconductors, quantum computing, and inexperienced know-how areas. This can be adopted by bilateral conferences between EU Commissioners and Indian Ministers, a plenary with Mr. Modi, Ms. von der Leyen and their Cabinets, in addition to conferences with key Indian trade leaders. The two sides are anticipated to maintain broad discussions on updating the EU-India Strategic Roadmap (2020-2025), together with cooperation within the Indo-Pacific. While EU Commissioners will try some refined messaging on “de-risking” European economies from China, and searching for to pivot to India, this can be more durable to attain. EU-China commerce stood at 739 billion Euros ($775 billion) in 2023, about six instances greater than EU-India commerce at 124 billion Euros ($130 billion), though commerce with China has plateaued whereas commerce with India grew 90% in a decade. Of specific notice can be talks on local weather change and inexperienced transition, the place the EU may step in to work with India even because the U.S. returns to fossil fuels beneath Mr. Trump.
Published – February 26, 2025 05:33 pm IST
