Twenty-two of the 27 commissioners are part of the delegation led by the president of the European Commission (EC), Ursula von der Leyen. This is the first trip of Europe by the college which took office in December, and the very first visit to India by the commissioners together.
Indian officials said that the visit of the College of Commissioners marks a new important phase of bilateral relations, while India and the EU enter the third decade of their strategic partnership.
The meetings of the Indian Council-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC), the bilaterals between the Indian ministers and the EU commissioners, and the meeting at the level of the leaders will diversify the commitment and promote trade and investments in a range of fields, the officials said.
These include artificial intelligence (AI) and semiconductors, as well as green hydrogen, sustainable urbanization, water management, resilient supply chains, defense and space.
A deepening relationship
India has established diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community – the first pillar of the European Union Future – in 1962. The joint political declaration signed in 1993 and the 1994 cooperation agreement paved the way for strengthening links between India and Europe.
The institutional architecture of cooperation on several levels has been chaired by the India-UE summits, 15 of which have taken place so far. The first summit took place in Lisbon in June 2000, and the bilateral relationship was upgraded to a strategic partnership during the 5th summit of The Hague in 2004.
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Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the President of the EC Ursula von der Leyen have met at least seven times in the past. The president paid an official visit to India in April 2022, during which she participated in the Dialogue Raisina as a chief guest and pronounced the inaugural address.
Prime Minister Modi and President Von Der Leyen briefly met on the sidelines of the G20 Rio summit in November 2024. In January of this year, the Prime Minister spoke by telephone with the president of the European Council Antonio Costa.
Meetings and initiatives
The India-EU strategic partnership: a roadmap until 2025 was adopted at the last India-EU summit in July 2020.
During the meeting of leaders in May 2021, the two parties announced the resumption of negotiations for a complete free trade and investment agreement and an agreement on geographic indications. They also launched an ambitious “connectivity partnership”.
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During their meeting in 2022, Modi and Von Der Leyen announced the creation of an India-UE TTC as a strategic coordination mechanism to meet the challenges of trade nexus, trust and security technology.
TTC-a new border similar to the initiative for critical and emerging technologies with the United States or the technological security initiative with the United Kingdom-represents three important pillars of cooperation in India-EU: digital and strategic technologies; Clean and green technologies; And trade, investments and resilient supply chains.
The first ministerial meeting of the TTC took place in May 2023; The second meeting will be held in New Delhi on Friday, February 28.
In the various meetings between the two parties, the question of global cooperation – including the current war in Ukraine, in which the United States under President Donald Trump made a remarkable change, leaving Europeans in the Luch – is certain to be discussed.
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Trade and Investments
India and the EU have negotiated a free trade agreement since the last and a half decade.
The economic argument for an agreement is solid: the EU is the largest trading partner in India in goods, and bilateral trade has increased by 90% over the past decade.
The bilateral trade in goods was $ 135 billion during the year 2023-24, with Indian exports to the EU representing $ 76 billion and imports for $ 59 billion. The bilateral trade in services in 2023 amounted to $ 53 billion, including Indian exports of $ 30 billion and $ 23 billion imports.
The cumulative flows of direct foreign investment (IDE) of the EU during the period April 2000 to September 2024 were $ 117.4 billion, which represents 16.6% of the total influx of IDE shares.
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Indian IDE exit to the EU is estimated at around 40.04 billion dollars for the period April 2000 to March 2024.
Technological cooperation
The technological partnership between India and the EU has taken on greater importance and emergency with a view to progress in China in this area.
Bilateral cooperation in science and technology is carried out within the framework of the 2007 scientific and technological cooperation agreement. The India High Performance Information Cooperation (HPC) intention was signed in November 2022 and November 2023, the two parties signed a memorandum of understanding on cooperation in semiconductors. The following month, the EU participated in the global partnership at the AI summit in New Delhi.
Green energy solutions
According to India-EU Green Hydrogen Cooperation Initiative, India was the exclusive partner country of European Hydrogen Week in Brussels in November 2024. The EU was a major partner of the International Conference on Green Hydrogen in Delhi in September.
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The European Investment Bank is committed to supporting Indian hydrogen projects with funding of 1 billion euros. Indian and European companies collaborate in the renewable and hydrogen sectors in order to develop a green hydrogen ecosystem in India by 2030.
Personal links to people
Solid and growing links of people are one of the foundations of the India-EU relationship. The growing Indian Indian diaspora contains a large number of qualified students, researchers and professionals. Indian professionals have received the largest part – more than 20% – EU blue cards issued in 2023-24.
Over the past 20 years, more than 6,000 Erasmus scholarships have been awarded to Indian students, which in fact among the best recipients in the scholarships. More than 2,700 Indian researchers have been funded by Marie Sklodowska -Curie Actions (part of the EU EU Horizon Europe research and innovation program since 2014 – the most in the world.
Defense and space
India and the EU strengthen their defense cooperation, especially in maritime security and the Indo-Pacific Region within the framework of the ESIWA +security program. This is crucial in the context of the growing maritime prowess of China and aggressive policies.
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The first joint naval exercises took place in October 2023 in the Gulf of Guinea. The two parties have intensified cooperation on global security, natural disasters, hacking and the fight against terrorism.
The PSLV of the Indian Space Research Research (ISRO) successfully launched the EU probation mission in December 2024. The ISRO and the European Space Agency (ESA) cooperated on Chandrayaan-3 and Aditya-L1 missions and signed a memorandum of understanding for the mission of Gaganyaan, India.
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