PM Modi skeds a high-profile visit to France after India-EU Summit in Portugal

PM Modi, who will travel to Portugal for the India-EU Summit being held under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, will continue on the second leg of his tour to France for a bilateral visit.

Published on: Apr 4, 2021, 12:37:29 IST

By Shishir Gupta, New Delhi

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India and the European Union are expected to signal the start of negotiations for a broad-based trade and investment agreement (BBTIA) at the Portugal Summit on May 8. Prime Minister Narendra Modi will attend the India-EU summit at Lisbon before he flies to France for a high-profile bilateral visit, people familiar with the matter said.

On December 7, French President Macron had called Prime Minister Modi and both leaders discussed several issues including digital and strategic autonomy, deepening of defence cooperation, Indo-Pacific, and the security environment in Asia and West Asia. (Reuters file photo)

Technical negotiations on the trade agreement, which is also being pursued by external affairs minister S Jaishankar at a diplomatic level, will begin between April 9 and 19. There is a possibility of a meeting between commerce minister Piyush Goyal and EU executive vice president and commissioner for trade Valdis Dombrovskis later this month-end. The date for the Goyal-Dombrovskis meeting is still to be decided, EU diplomats said.

Despite India being one of the largest trade partners of the EU, the trade negotiations, which began in 2007, have been sluggish in the past with differences over tariff levels of wines and spirits, auto components, small cars and data security. “However, both sides have shown more accommodation this time and are willing to have a positive view towards exports from both blocks,” said a senior official.

Also read | India calls big economies’ pressure tactics to gain market access unfair

The EU will be under pressure to complete the trade deal with India since India is expected to sign a bilateral trade agreement with post-Brexit Britain during UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s visit to New Delhi on April 26.

PM Modi, who will travel to Portugal for the India-EU Summit being held under the shadow of the coronavirus pandemic, will continue on the second leg of his tour to France for a bilateral visit. Maritime security will be the heart of his summit-level talks with French President Emmanuel Macron.

While the broad agenda of the bilateral visit to France will be finalised during the two-day visit of foreign minister Jean Yves Le Drian to India beginning April 12, both countries are expected to impart a new meaning to defence and security cooperation apart from the political synergy in multilateral platforms. Diplomatic advisor to President Macron, Emmanuel Bonne is also deeply involved in the bilateral exercise with a special focus on acquiring new capabilities and the latest technologies to counter any aggression in the Indo-Pacific.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Shishir Gupta
Shishir Gupta is Executive Editor at Hindustan Times and one of India's top journalists covering national security, strategic affairs, foreign policy and geopolitics. Over the past three decades, he has extensively reported on India's military, diplomatic and security landscape, covering every major conflict and national security challenge, from the 1999 Kargil War and the 2020 East Ladakh standoff to Operation Sindoor in 2025. He has also covered major terror attacks, including the IC-814 hijacking, the 26/11 Mumbai attacks and the 2025 Pahalgam terror strike, along with numerous Pakistan-backed terrorist incidents in the Kashmir Valley and across India. He has reported on national and state elections for more than three decades. A recognised authority on strategic affairs, Gupta has covered India's nuclear programme since the Pokhran-II (Shakti series) tests in May 1998 and has written extensively on global nuclear issues, Indian diplomacy and the country's expanding global outreach. He has also reported widely on international conflicts and terrorism, with a special focus on the Indian subcontinent. Gupta has interviewed Prime Minister Narendra Modi more than four times, including Modi's first interview with the print media after becoming Prime Minister in May 2014. His other interviews include three with the Dalai Lama, as well as conversations with Benjamin Netanyahu, Amit Shah, Yogi Adityanath, S. Jaishankar, Nirmala Sitharaman and Piyush Goyal. He is the author of Indian Mujahideen: The Enemy Within (Hachette, 2011) and Himalayan Face-off: Chinese Assertion and Indian Riposte (Hachette, 2014). He was awarded the Chevening-Wolfson Joint Scholarship at Wolfson College, University of Cambridge, UK, in 1998 and participated in the International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department in 2006. He received the Ben Gurion Prize from Israel in 2011 and the K. Subrahmanyam Prize for Strategic Studies in 2015 from the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA). Since 2024, he has hosted Point Blank, Hindustan Times' weekly YouTube show on global geopolitics.Read More

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