AIR Spotlight - Discussion on 15th India - EU Summit

By Paras Chitkara|Updated : July 17th, 2020

Discussion on 15th India - EU Summit

Participants - Sandeep Phukan, Political analyst and Aditi tandon ,journalist

Highlights

  • PM Modi addressed the 15th INDIA-EU summit held virtually for the first time.

  • It was postponed in march due to COVID-19 pandemic .
  • PM Modi spoke of the need of INDIA and EU to deepen and expand relationships.
  • Both need an action oriented agenda for strengthening ties and a long term strategic perspective. 
  • The Prime Minister also said that India and the EU are “natural partners” because both these regions value the universal principles of democracy, pluralism and inclusivity.
  • The most important reference made was to the fact that both these regions have battled the covid-19 with great resilience.
  • In post covid-19 world both India and the EU will play a very important role in economic reconstruction of the world.
  • Prime minister in his statement highlighted the importance of peace and stability for forging a stronger relationship.

India - EU

  • European Union is a block of 27 countries.
  • Even during the pandemic there is a considerable exchange of information and knowledge.
  • India played an important role in supply of essential medicines to the world including EU
  • From common flu medicines to HCQ ,Paracetamol to life saving drugs India has been able to scale up its production and supply to the world.
  • India and China are the biggest producers of vaccines and without the help of either of them we cannot have mass production of COVID vaccine.
  • The EU is one of India’s largest trading partners and in 2018-19 exports were nearly 57 billion US dollars. 
  • Both India and European Union share values like respect for international institutions, democracy, pluralism, multilateralism ,freedom and transparency.
  • China is going to be one of the key topics of the discussion at the virtual meeting. 
  • Apart from the current challenges, long-term challenges like climate change are also a priority for both India and the EU.

 

The China Factor

  • After territorial adventurism of China along LAC rule based international order has come under strain.
  • New relationships are being forged and older relationships are being made stronger. 
  • European Union was briefed by both Indian and Chinese authorities ahead of India EU Summit 
  • European Union officials said that they trusted both Indian and Chinese authorities and looked towards a continuing dialogue in order to find a peaceful solution for the differences.
  • It is particularly important that India and China talk to each other as these two are the world's very powerful and influential players today.

Trade and Economy

  • Economic recovery is going to play a very important role in the post COVID world.
  • Trade is an important agenda for both India and the EU.
  • Pending discussion on free trade agreement which has not yet matured.
  • It will be a challenging issue for the simple reason that in a post COVID world both India and the European Union would like to recover as fast as possible but off late we've also seen that many of the big countries have also become very protectionist. 
  • Closing markets and increasing tariffs pose significant challenges for countries that seek to look at foreign markets to shore up their exports.
  • European Union is a very important bloc for India to scale up its exports.
  • The tricky issue is that many countries including India have come up with the slogan of Atmanirbhar so that one doesn't have to depend too much on imports.
  • Important challenge will be to protect your own economy and expand at the same time.
  • The trade potential of the two regions is underutilized.

Climate Change

  • The COVID pandemic is related to the ecological imbalance. 
  • The greater contact between pathogens and human beings is leading to new viral strains entering the community.
  • The topic of climate change is also going to be important along with how nations are going to look at that issue and prevent the planet from going onto the path of destruction.
  • Prime Minister Modi in his opening remarks clearly said that the climate change is going to be part of the long-term challenges that both India as well as the EU face and they need to work closely together.
  • Prime Minister Modi also mentioned renewable energy and the investments in technology.
  • Investments in such cleaner and safer technology keeping in mind the issue of climate change is the need of the hour.
  • Both India and European Union will play an important role in terms of rebuilding the world economy in a post COVID world based on human centric globalization.

 

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