EU-India relations

A major sticking point at the EU-India summit is the planned free trade agreement (FTA) between the two sides. Daniele Smadja, head of the European Commission's delegation to India, said on Wednesday that the talks needed a boost.

"The FTA negotiations are very complex," Smadja said. "We have to jump into the cold water of give and take." The time had come to exchange concessions, she said.

But Clemens Spiess, a lecturer at the South Asia Institute at the University of Heidelberg, said he did not expect a final agreement to be reached.

"There are still a lot of hurdles," Spiess told Deutsche Welle. These include intellectual property rights disputes and tariff disagreements. He said he did not expect FTA talks to conclude successfully until 2010 or 2011.

Security has become a common challenge

In the past, the EU's relations to India have focused primarily on trade and economic issues. This comes as no surprise, as the EU is India's largest trading partner. Graham Watson, chairman of the European Parliament delegation for relations with India, said trade has more than doubled between the two partners over the past five years. According to parliament figures, bilateral trade is expected to exceed 70.7 billion euros ($104.5 billion) by 2010 and 160.6 billion euros by 2015.

"Clearly it's mainly in the trade area that we want to talk, but we also recognize on both sides that we have a common challenge in promoting peace and comprehensive security," Watson told Deutsche Welle. A security dialogue has been in place since 2006.

The EU not only recognized India's role as a force of stability in a volatile region, but also as one of the few democracies in the region, he said.

"Democracy gives India a huge advantage over China in the medium and long-term," Watson said. "It makes it far easier for the EU to deal with India, not least because once a decision is taken it represents a consensus of opinion and therefore to be stuck to."

This perception wasn't always the case, though, said Rajendra K Jain, professor and former chairman of the Center for European Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University in New Delhi.

"The EU never viewed India as an important security partner halfway around the world because their issues and priorities were very different," Jain said in an interview with Deutsche Welle. But this changed after the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November. The EU recognized that India was a significant player in anti-terrorism collaboration.

However, Jain said the structure of the EU did not allow for too much optimism in what could be possibly achieved in this area.

"The EU is a very strange political creature," Jain said. "We should not have too high expectations of what is going to be possible in the realm of security cooperation because insofar as intelligence is concerned, it is a very sensitive issue and not the competence of the European Union. That is clearly with the member states."

Security in particular played a more central role in India's relations to the United States, Spiess said.

"A problem is the interaction between one country, India, on the one side and the 27-member state community," Spiess said. "We all know there is no such thing as a consistent EU foreign policy, and security policy is now the domain of US-Indo relations, which overshadows India's interactions with the EU in terms of security relations."

India won't succumb to climate pressure

With the UN conference in Copenhagen just a few weeks away, climate change will also be a point of debate in New Delhi.

"The western countries are pressuring India to join the fight against climate change more thoroughly," Spiess said. "But India under no circumstances will accept any sort of legally binding reductions on its future greenhouse gas emissions trajectory."

New Delhi is resisting any binding emission cuts and demanding finance and technology from wealthy countries to help reduce emissions.

But there are other areas in which the two sides cooperate closely, such as energy, technology transfer, science and academic cooperation. At this week's summit, a cooperation agreement between the European Atomic Energy Community Euratom and India will be signed in the field of fusion energy research. Representatives will also launch a call for proposals for research in the field of solar energy, the European Commission said.

"There's plenty there for our leaders to get their teeth into," Watson said. "The question is: where can we best find areas where we can make progress together and where there's a real added value in cooperation."

An equal partnership?

For the EU, experts agreed, India is certainly an international partner to be taken seriously. This was evident from the strategic partnership agreement in 2004 and the joint action plan in 2005, revised in 2008, which aims to deepen dialogue and cooperation.

"The EU doesn't identify too many countries in the world with which they will enter into strategic partnerships," said Spiess. "From the perspective of the EU, it's crystal clear that India is identified as a stabilizing factor in the region and as a growing global player. That's why it's a partner to count on."

But it would go too far to say India was an equal partner, said Christian Wagner from the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin.

"For the EU, India is a developing country," Wagner told Deutsche Welle. "The lion's share of EU resources allocated to India in the next years deal with development goals." EU support is earmarked for helping India achieve the UN Millennium Development Goals, he said.

With respect to sentiments from New Delhi, Jain said there has been a shift in perception - despite the strong emphasis on trade and economic issues in the relationship.

"I think there has been a perceptible change in recent years and growing recognition among Indian policymakers about the importance of the European Union in world affairs," Jain said.

Author: Sabina Casagrande
Editor: Rob Mudge