Ursula von der Leyen and the Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi Together, a set of promises intended to bring India and the EU closer. They would conclude a free trade agreement by the end of the year, they said. Von der Leyen also told the media that Europe intended to create a “defense and security partnership” similar to the recent agreements it had signed with Japan and South Korea.
All this positive energy was not only felt different from the state of the transatlantic relationship. He also represented a major change compared to three years ago, when India failed in European eyes to offer a sufficiently stable conviction of the Russian invasion of Ukraine. It’s not India that has changed its air since, however. European politicians seem to have concluded that the strategic autonomy of the continent forces them to court New Delhi.
The continent’s dilemma is that no one on the world scene can even start replacing the United States as a security ally or in China as an economic partner. Compared to what he abandons, what he is looking for will always appear small.
The Commission has succeeded in bringing a free trade agreement with the Latin American trade block above the line, for example. He was willing to spend precious political capital on this effort, even if the group of Brazil, Argentina, Paraguay and Argentina has an even lower share of world trade than India.
The leaders of Europe have correctly decided that they now need so many friends – Japan, South Americans, India, the kingdoms of the Gulf – as they can possibly tinker together. They may be right. Admittedly, the commercial and security partnerships of European states with many of these countries have underperform or have been transported to the United States. India may not be a most advanced or competitive economy in the world, but it is one of the few countries with a useful industrial basis for a continent determined to rearore. Indian companies can increase basic manufacturing – artillery shells, for example – very quickly. Last week, one of these companies, Bharat Forge Ltd., announced that it had exported more than 100 artillery systems of 155 mm in 2024; The manufacturer of car components managed to produce more than 100,000 shells in a month in the last brief war with Pakistan 25 years ago.
The President of the Commission has taken care to note that the interest of India “to join industrial defense projects within the framework of the permanent structured cooperation program of the EU”. Indian interior production has increased, although far from being as quickly as South Korea. Perhaps defense budgets in European balloon will give local businesses the incentive they need to increase capacity.
Europe can feel a bit without a friend for the moment. He had barely started to accept that China was a systemic rival before discovering that the United States also considered himself a competitor.
But there is little chance that India will be able to fulfill the role of China in European supply chains, for example. China and the EU both lead to more than 15% of world trade; The share of India has long been stuck around 2%. Most of the years, India is negotiated more with the EU than with anyone else, but it does not occupy such an important position in the European economy, and is only the ninth partner of the block.
If nothing else, Von der Leyen and his peers will have recognized that they must keep countries like India invested in the world order based on rules that maintained prosperous Europe. It is too easy to follow the example and to move away from America from multilateralism; While the EU commissioners landed in New Delhi, the Minister of Finance of India said that multilateralism was “in a way”.
Brussels technocrats may not have planned to release a low air of despair when they aligned themselves for photographs with Modi in New Delhi. But, given the situation in which their region is found, despair is better than the alternative. The Indians, on the other hand, accept that they cannot solve all EU problems. But they also know that the EU must build and repair as many relationships as possible, as soon as possible.
Otherwise, as we have all seen in the oval office, Europe is alone.
(Warning: The opinions expressed in this column are those of the writer. The facts and opinions expressed here do not reflect the views of www.economicimes.com.)
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