EU chief to seek closer military, trade and tech ties on India visit

BRUSSELS – The European Union’s chief govt will search to extend gross sales of European army gear to India and relaunch talks on a free commerce deal when she meets India’s prime minister in New Delhi on Monday, a senior EU official stated.

European Fee President Ursula von der Leyen’s go to is a part of Western efforts to encourage India to cut back its ties to Russia after Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, and follows a visit final week by British Prime Minister Boris Johnson.

“There are an entire host of Western leaders reaching out to India proper now to see what options we will present,” the senior EU official stated. “The bottom line is that we wish to carry ahead this relationship, work on expertise collectively and convey India into our camp, that’s the primary message of our go to,” the official stated.

Von der Leyen arrived in India on Sunday for a two-day official go to, her first as president of European Fee.

India has not explicitly condemned the Feb. 24 invasion by Russia, its largest provider of army hardware.

Von der Leyen goals to agree with India’s premier, Narendra Modi, to arrange a brand new commerce and expertise council much like an EU-U.S. mannequin, which may talk about digital privateness, regulation of expertise corporations and social media platform supervision, the senior EU official stated.

The EU and India may even probably conform to relaunch free commerce talks, which had been frozen in 2013 over variations together with tariff reductions and patent safety, and haven't moved ahead considerably since an EU-India digital summit in Could 2021.

India, the world’s second-most populous nation with practically 1.4 billion individuals, is seen by the EU as a vital ally to assist handle China’s rise from a benign buying and selling companion to a rival energy with a rising army presence.

A 2020 research by the European Parliament put the advantages of a commerce deal for the EU with India at as much as 8.5 billion euros ($9.17 billion), though the estimate was made earlier than Britain’s departure from the bloc.

($1 = 0.9264 euros)