Europe wants a reliable partner; India needs to act cautiously and step up

The European Union seeks concessions from India, tolerating ties with Russia and oil export; now India must reciprocate, avoiding unnecessary moves that would further strain EU's trust

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By Mihir S Sharma

 

When the leaders of the European Union set out their new strategy to engage India in September, they hoped it would result in a few favorable headlines about the new partnership. And they did indeed read multiple India-related headlines in the next days — but about its participation in “strategic” military exercises with Russia and Belarus. 

Brussels, which has been pushing for more concessions, must have felt like someone had set out to humiliate them. That wasn’t the intent, of course, and officials in New Delhi were surprised and puzzled by the anger in Europe.

 

Clearly, both sides struggle to understand each other. At the moment, though, it does look like the Europeans are trying harder than the Indians. They have stopped complaining about New Delhi’s continuing engagement with Moscow, learned to look the other way while Russian oil is refined and resold, and even put up with photographs of President Vladimir Putin and President Xi Jinping embracing Prime Minister Narendra Modi at a recent summit in China.

 

India needs to reciprocate. Nobody expects the military to end its long-standing relationship with Russia in the foreseeable future — that can’t happen, if only because they need to maintain supply chains and repair networks for almost all their weapons platforms. But own-goals like the Zapad exercises are quite unnecessary. At a time when drones are testing the eastern borders of Nato, it’s unclear what utility the Indian military would get out of training with its counterparts from Iran, Bangladesh, Burkina Faso, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, and Mali.

 

The official defense — that the army deputed only a few soldiers to the exercise, while simultaneously sending far more to US-led war games in Alaska, and had participated in previous iterations of Zapad — didn’t cut any ice in Europe. India is looking for Europe to invest in its future; and anyone seeking investment knows that your primary job is to figure out what your investors’ red lines are, and try not to cross them before anything’s signed.

 

It’s only a matter of a few months before an agreement is due to be reached. Earlier this year, Modi and president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, surprised their officials by saying that a free trade deal would be closed by the end of the year. But the two sides still have to overcome a series of sticking points on agriculture, cars and car parts, as well as wine and spirits — plus the contentious issue of India’s quality control regime that unpredictably and irrationally interferes with trade. New Delhi’s bureaucracy might be distracted putting out fires lit by the White House, but from a longer-term perspective the EU deal is even more important.

 

If the leaders’ deadline is missed, it may never happen. President Donald Trump certainly does not want Europe to extend a lifeline to New Delhi. He has demanded that, instead of freer trade, the EU put 100 per cent tariffs on India and China to punish them for buying Russian oil. While his European counterparts politely ignored the pictures of Modi, Xi and Putin, Trump declared that it meant the South Asian nation was “lost” to “deepest, darkest China.”

 

New Delhi should recognize that there’s a limited amount of time available to lock the Europeans in before pressure from America will begin to tell. Even within the EU, political consensus may fracture, as more populists are elected that are friendlier to China and Russia and suspicious of any new deals with countries like India. 

 

India needs a bit more empathy for European concerns about its own security. It has always surrounded its collaboration with the US, including through the Quad, with messaging that it isn’t working against China. At the very least, any further engagement with Russia should be accompanied by similar signals. Europe’s leaders will not give special treatment to a country that they also fear will line up with Moscow against the continent.  

 

The Europeans, meanwhile, need to be more flexible on their trade requirements. India has signed multiple agreements in the past few years, but they contained far fewer demands than what Brussels expects. The Commission’s bureaucrats will need to give up some of their precious regulatory barriers if they want to get an agreement over the line this year. 

 

The Indians should merely ensure they look like a reliable, long-term partner. A country struggling with a China that expects complete submission and an America that has imposed 50 per cent tariffs on its goods is running out of partners and options. There’s political will in Europe right now for a deal with India that includes trade, investment and defense. Modi should seize the moment — before Trump and Xi ensure that it’s no longer on offer.  (Disclaimer: This is a Bloomberg Opinion piece, and these are the personal opinions of the writer. They do not reflect the views of www.business-standard.com or the Business Standard newspaper)