The European Union Wednesday unveiled a policy document, outlining the broad contours of significantly scaling up ties with India in a plethora of areas like trade, investment, infrastructure, defence, security and counter-terrorism, and proposed a military-to-military cooperation in the Indian Ocean.
Releasing the document, the European Union's Ambassador to India Tomasz Kozlowski said it lays the foundation to take the relationship to the next level, besides seeking to work together for a rules-based international order as well as to jointly deal with pressing regional and global challenges.
The strategy paper, which replaces a similar document issued in 2004, said the EU has an "interest" in strengthening its political, economic and defence cooperation with India as a strong partnership with New Delhi was key for a balanced EU policy towards Asia as a whole.
"The strategy illustrates a very important fact that India is on the top of our agenda in the field of external relations. We think that we are ready for a joint leap now," Kozlowski told reporters.
The document identified a range of areas including trade, investment, infrastructure, defence and security, blue economy and environment for scaling up cooperation.
On the long-pending India-EU free trade agreement, he said the grouping is committed to negotiate a comprehensive, balanced and economically meaningful agreement on trade and investment, adding both sides are engaged on it.
When asked about the contentious issue of data protection, Kozlowski said it is a very sensitive matter for the EU and that three delegations from Europe have apprised the Indian government as well as Indian industries about the EU's new data protection regulation.
"We are happy that India is working on its privacy laws. We are impressed by the Supreme Court's ruling recognising privacy as a fundamental right. India is now working on privacy law. The EU will provide our contribution to public consultation on it," he said.
The EU is known to have some reservations over India's move to localise data.
The envoy said the EU was ready to explore "all options" for starting negotiations with India on data protection and related issues.
The document said, as a leading world economy and the world's largest democracy, India's endorsement of a high level of data protection would constitute a critical example at a moment where there is an increasing demand for international standards on privacy.
On maritime cooperation with India, he said, "we are proposing to the Indian side to establish military-to military cooperation."
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