India and EU to seal connectivity agreement, revive negotiations on trade

The connectivity agreement between India and the European Union will open a new chapter in relations with both the power blocks slated to create assets in third countries, particularly in the Indo-Pacific region.

Published on: May 3, 2021, 15:28:51 IST

By Shishir Gupta

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India and European Union are all set to seal a connectivity agreement at the May 8 virtual summit at Lisbon apart from reviving the negotiations on the stalled trade and investment agreement.

Although many a experts have questioned that the EU Indo-Pacific policy only names India once, EU diplomats in their briefing have made it clear India is central to their policy along with US and Japan.

While Prime Minister Narendra Modi is keen to deepen cooperation at the summit with Charles Michel, President of European Council, and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, the connectivity agreement will open a new chapter in relations with both the power blocks slated to create assets in third countries, particularly in the Indo-Pacific.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi took to the Twitter on Monday to express his gratitude to the European Union for its support to India on its fight against the coronavirus disease.

According to diplomatic sources in EU, the connectivity agreement will link India and EU in transport, energy, digital world and people to people contacts by creating assets and capacities in not only India and EU but also joint investment in third countries. The connectivity agreement will not only based on rules based order but also involve private sector to create assets in the Indo-Pacific region without burdening the third country with debt.

“It is an India-EU answer to China’s Belt Road Initiative as the connectivity partnership will take to account environment and sustainable development and totally transparent processes…..it is akin to India-Japan bidding in Sri Lankan port project,” said an EU diplomat.

The President of the European Union Commission, Ursula von der Leyen later wrote on Twitter, "There is clear momentum to strengthen our strategic relations on trade, digital, climate change & multilateralism. I'm encouraged by the prospect of intensifying our trade & investment relations. This would tap into a huge potential to the benefit of our businesses & citizens."

The India-EU summit comes at a time when the latter has come up with its Indo-Pacific policy. Although many a experts have questioned that the EU Indo-Pacific policy only names India once, EU diplomats in their briefing have made it clear India is central to their policy along with US and Japan.

“If the yardstick is naming a country, then US has not been named even once. With EU-China comprehensive trade and investment agreement on the back-burner, it is quite clear where the European consortium of nations is looking,” said an ambassador in Europe.

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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