Back to ResearchNarendra Modi has been roaming the planet and has proven to have a real gift for international showmanship. But one part of the world that has, so far, been missing from his itinerary has been Europe.
Joao Cravinho, the European Union ambassador, held a press briefing this week and underlined the degree of neglect Brussels has experienced from the new Modi government.
The India-European Union free trade agreement, almost 95 per cent done, is awaiting the last mile of negotiations. Three quarters of a year in office, however, the new Indian government has not held a single meeting with the EU about whether they want to animate or bury the talks. Cravinho said he hoped that the EU would get word sometime in the next few weeks about what New Delhi wanted to do.
Somewhat strange given that, as he noted, the EU remains India’s single largest source of foreign investment, single largest trade partner and probably largest recipient of outward Indian foreign investment. Mind you, New Delhi had some reason to delay as the entire Brussels leadership was recently changed. Modi did meet the outgoing President of the European Council, Herman von Rompuy, at the G-20 summit long enough to master the pronunciation of each other’s names.
Of course, if you subtract the United Kingdom from this equation, the number for the rest of Europe plummets. Take out Germany as well and it is just a few billions here and there.
The lack of Indian engagement on climate change, the Holy Grail of European diplomacy, with Brussels is telling as well. Japan and the United States figure more in India’s climate change policy than Europe does. On Ukraine the two sides don’t even waste time talking to each other. Cravinho did say India could tell Russia that it was doing bad things in Ukraine, but it was for form’s sake.
One measure of the importance that Europe in the Modi worldview is the Indian foreign ministry’s recent 116-page e-book on the new government’s foreign policy, “Breakthrough Diplomacy”
which gives all of two pages to Europe as a whole (with Minister of State V.K. Singh’s visit to Slovenia as one of the high points), plus two pages each to the UK and Germany. The Indian diaspora gets 12 pages and Africa, which Modi has also yet to visit, 14 pages in comparison.
Of course this will change to some extent. Modi will go to Germany and probably France in April. The UK will get a place on the itinerary in the later half of this year.
Cravinho was also certain that the Indo-EU summit would also be held sometime this year. Hopefully.
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