Round The World

New Delhi, 12 October 2010

India-EU Relations

FORGING MULTI-LATERALISM

By Monish Tourangbam

Research Scholar, School of International Studies (JNU)

World politics in this globalized age is a complex web of inter-linking interests and clashing interests. As such, the need to build bridges and forge a multilateral approach is important. The European Union (EU) is a unique symbol of belief in consensus building and multilateral approach. India as a multi-ethnic and multi-religious democracy has vast areas of commonalities and convergences with the EU which should be increasingly tapped. Projected goals and vision of cooperation need to be backed by convergences in material terms, in the form of increased engagement in the political and the economic fields.

Given the circumstances wherein Indo-US ties have hogged the limelight when it comes to Indian engagement with the western world, India-EU relations need to find its own space. It entails reassessing the areas of convergences and divergences to create an atmosphere where India and the EU would pragmatically raise the levels of engagement.

India’s emergence as one of the most lucrative markets in the world has attracted the attention of multiple countries and it is in the interest of both EU and India to qualitatively and quantitatively increase the trade flow. India has managed to sail through the global recession relatively unscathed. Its growing role in G20 coupled with its increasing attractiveness as a major defence and peaceful nuclear energy market creates the atmosphere whereby EU’s interest can invariably have a good landing spot.

The Vice President Hamid Ansari who recently attended the Asia-Europe Meeting (ASEM) in Brussels held key interactions with European leaders to intensify engagement in the run-up to the India-EU summit to be held later this year. The EU has so far succeeded in pooling the resources of 27 countries without necessarily instigating fears of loss of sovereignty. In a century that is being labeled the Asian century, the EU is still an indispensable player with 22% of the world GDP and over 500 million people.

Given, the common adherence to the ideas of pluralism, multilateralism and democracy, India and the EU can take the ties forward to new heights.  It would be an understatement to say that the journey will not be easy. But, India’s increasing engagement with major players like the UK, Germany and France and effort to court smaller countries from the Union should complement the process of building common bonds with the EU which in turn will help provide a platform from which to take the bilateral ties with the individual countries forward.

Both Vice-President Ansari and the President of the European Council Mr. Herman Van Rompuy expressed satisfaction over the scale of the ties and discussed the need for greater Parliamentary exchanges to create bodies of positive public opinion on both sides.

One of the vital issues of India-EU ties is the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) in negotiation, which Commerce Minister Anand Sharma feels will be signed by the end of the year. According to sources, the negotiations are in full steam and ministerial talks are scheduled in Brussels next month for the agreement that could open up new export opportunities worth $9 billion for India.

Nine rounds of negotiations have gone into the proposed agreement and officials are hopeful of clinching the deal by the year end. The FICCI President Rajan Mittal commented that non-trade issues (such as environment and labour standards) needed to be covered under the proposed FTA. The EU is India's largest trading partner, while India is the 10th largest trading partner for the 27-nation bloc and the FTA when sealed will invariably increase the volume of trade.

Commenting on India’s concerns over protectionism, Ansari opined that “non-traditional methods of protection” initiated by the developed countries as parts of stimulus packages and emergency support measures would hinder global economic recovery and the growth of developing nations.

“A recent OECD-WTO-UNCTAD report on G-20 Trade and Investment measures has noted that the potential for non-transparent and discriminatory application of emergency measures remains a serious challenge. The report highlighted the need for Governments to be vigilant in opposing protectionism, devise and publicly announce exit strategies from emergency trade restrictive measures and to ward off protectionist pressures seeking to make them permanent,” he added. This issue might be of critical importance in the coming days as economies become increasingly inter-dependent and as the EU looks to increase its trade flow with India.

During his intervention at the ASEM summit, Vice President Ansari also remarked on the need for reforming international financial institutions. In fact, the summit declaration called for the process to be completed before next month's G-20 meeting in Seoul. Here, he found an equal companion in China’s Premier Wen Jiabao.

They sought more quota shares of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) to developing countries .The declaration wanted the world to “adequately reflect the relative weight and responsibilities of the IMF members in the world economy.” It dwelt on the need to reflect the status of the emerging dynamic markets and developing countries. The summit also welcomed the decision by the Development Committee of the World Bank to increase the voting power of developing and transition countries by 4.59% compared to 2008 and looked forward to its timely approval by the Board of Governors.

The Vice President also held a number of bilateral talks. During the bilateral with Finland and Latvia, the issues of investment, technology transfer in green energy, educational relations, scope of investment in India, climate change, food processing, pharmaceuticals, and United Nations reforms were discussed.

The President of Latvia informed that Latvia would be celebrating special events for the 150th birth anniversary of Rabindranath Tagore next year, reaffirming the importance of people-to-people and cultural factors in the development of sustainable relations. Greece, badly hit by the economic recession, has also expressed interest in joining hands with India in maritime cooperation. The Greek PM George Papandreou dwelt on the prospects of cooperation in shipping and fighting piracy.

In response to the Belgian PM Yves Leterme who wanted India to play a positive role in climate change talks, Ansari reiterated that the UN Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCC), the Kyoto Protocol and the Bali Process remained the basis of negotiations, and the earlier commitments could not be side-stepped.

The main contention between the developed and the developing countries is over the responsibilities to be taken. Rapidly developing countries like India and China strongly believe that they can voluntary set national commitments but their development cannot be retarded. They opined the lead should be taken by developed countries which have been historically responsible for the accumulated greenhouse gases in the atmosphere.

Last but not the least, one of the shared problems that could prove a major catalyst in building convergences between the EU and India is the common threat from terrorism. A significant network of intelligence sharing could be build between India and the EU that can pool resources from its 27 member nations. This would in turn build a regular network of inter-linkages among the Indian intelligence and security agencies and their counterparts spanning across the European continent. ---- INFA

(Copyright, India News and Feature Alliance)