<\/p>\n
News<\/span><\/b>: Recently, the head of the European Union visited India, and Prime Minister\u202fof India visited the two European countries – France and Germany.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Ex-French President Charles de Gaulle famously declared, \u201cthe strength and stability of India are essential for peace and tranquillity in South Asia\u201d.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n German Chancellor Konrad Adenauer funded the establishment of the Indian Institutes of Technology.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Russia\u2019s invasion of\u202fUkraine seeks to tear down the <\/span>post-Cold War security structure<\/span><\/b> in Europe. The west is dissatisfied with India\u2019s position in this regard.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n There are differences in the agenda of the EU and individual European countries<\/strong>. This division has often posed a problem for India. Individual countries cannot offer <\/span>bilateral market access<\/span><\/b> in exchange for <\/span>bilateral defence deals<\/span><\/b>. <\/span><\/p>\n –<\/strong> For example, the French will sell Rafale jets in the name of <\/span>strategic partnership<\/span><\/b> but they cannot offer a trade and investment deal to India.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The European Union is unlikely to settle a <\/span>free trade agreement (FTA)<\/span><\/b> for a \u201c<\/span>tariff-only\u201d trade agreement<\/span><\/b> having exclusion of labour, environment and social issues. The Europeans cannot isolate trade from some of the very relevant dimensions connected to trade.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>The Europeans constructed the EU as the EU Single Market project to deal with <\/span>external competition<\/span><\/b>.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n –<\/strong> In short, even as Europe worries about Russia<\/strong>, and India worries about China<\/strong>, it is still not clear what the two can and would do for each other, despite all the talk about partnership across Eurasia and Indo-Pacific. <\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n For India, it is not clear how much and what it can unilaterally offer Europe beyond the promise of standing up to China or reducing dependence on Russia. This alone cannot be the foundation of a new strategic partnership.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n India\u2019s relations with these <\/span>continental European powers<\/span><\/b> have been shaped by the Cold War. Therefore, the revival of old East-West tensions will cast a shadow on India\u2019s relations with the European Union.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The EU and G7 can <\/span>de-risk<\/span><\/b>, if not <\/span>decouple<\/span><\/b>, from aggressively rising China in the economic space.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n These middle powers like Brazil, France, Germany, India, Indonesia, Japan, South Africa and others can work together to combine their \u201c<\/span>strength and stability<\/span><\/b>\u201d to ensure <\/span>\u201cpeace and tranquillity<\/span><\/b>\u201d in their respective neighbourhoods. It will further impose some discipline on the <\/span>three<\/span><\/b> big powers<\/span><\/b> from recklessly and unilaterally setting the <\/span>global geopolitical<\/span><\/b> and <\/span>geo-economic agendas.<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n India should continue to seek a <\/span>global environment<\/span><\/b> conducive<\/span><\/b> to its own economic development. It should work to ensure the world acknowledges its <\/span>civilisational contribution<\/span><\/b> to humanity.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Individual European nations, especially Germany and France, focus on their <\/span>own strategi<\/span><\/b>c and <\/span>business interests<\/span><\/b>, including <\/span>defence equipment<\/span><\/b> sales.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Both sides should acquire a better understanding of each other\u2019s security concerns. For example, The EU is concerned about <\/span>Russian aggressiveness<\/span><\/b> in Europe. India is equally concerned about <\/span>Chinese aggressiveness<\/span><\/b> in Asia.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n The <\/span>\u201cMiddle Powers\u201d,<\/span><\/b> countries like France, Germany and India should seek policy space for themselves and not be forced into taking positions by <\/span>the Big Powers<\/span><\/b> \u2014 the United States, China and Russia.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n Source:<\/span><\/b> The post is based on an article \u201cPowers like India, France and Germany<\/strong>\u201d published in the Indian Express<\/strong> on 06<\/strong><\/span>th<\/strong> May 2022<\/strong>.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" News: Recently, the head of the European Union visited India, and Prime Minister\u202fof India visited the two European countries – France and Germany.\u00a0 India\u2019s relationship with the continental European Countries\u00a0 Ex-French President Charles de Gaulle famously declared, \u201cthe strength and stability of India are essential for peace and tranquillity in South Asia\u201d.\u00a0\u00a0 German Chancellor Konrad… Continue reading The challenge for Middle Powers like India, France and Germany\u00a0<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10328,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1230,9],"tags":[212,10500],"class_list":["post-183106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-9-pm-daily-articles","category-public","tag-gs-paper-2","tag-indian-express","entry"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","views":{"total":0,"cached_at":"","cached_date":1704793692},"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/10328"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=183106"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/183106\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=183106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=183106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/forumias.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=183106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}India\u2019s relationship with the continental European Countries<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
What are the challenges?<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n
Way Forward<\/span><\/b>\u00a0<\/span><\/h5>\n