EU-INDIA: Special Dialogue Launched at First Regular Summit

By Mario de Queiroz Reprint | | Print |

Mario de Queiroz

LISBON, Jun 29 2000 (IPS) - India, a South Asian nuclear power with a population of one billion — the world’s single largest democratic nation — has brought the select group of countries holding regular summits with the European Union (EU) to six.

Wednesday’s meeting in Lisbon between prime ministers Atal Bihari Vajpayee of India and Antonio Guterres of Portugal — who currently presides over the EU — marked a watershed in relations between the EU and the world’s second-most populous country after China.

The meeting was also Portugal’s last official act in the rotating presidency of the EU before France takes the helm for the next six months.

The EU-India summit was crucial for the European bloc. Alongside Guterres were the president of the European Commission — the EU’s executive arm — Javier Solana, in charge of the bloc’s common foreign and defence policy, EU foreign relations commissioner Chris Patten and trade commissioner Pascal Lamy, as well as the ministers of economy, trade, science and technology of India and Portugal.

The countries that hold regular summits with the EU now total six: Canada, China, India, Japan, Russia and the United States.

The fact that India joined that select group in Lisbon has enormous symbolic meaning. The era of European colonialism in India began with the arrival of the Portuguese fleet of Vasco da Gama in 1498 and ended in 1961 with the handover to India of Portugal’s possessions in that country — Goa, Diu and Damao — by Portuguese General Antonio Joao Vassalo e Silva.

Britain had pulled out of India in 1947. France and the Netherlands were the other colonial powers in the area.

At the dawn of the 21st century, with the scars of European colonialism healed, India and the EU decided to give priority to practical matters with the aim of boosting trade, holding regular summits and undertaking joint actions towards peace, against drug trafficking, and in favour of the environment and technological cooperation.

The EU is already India’s top trading partner, with an annual turnover of 20 billion dollars, slated to climb to 30 billion by 2005 and 40 billion by 2010.

The Indian economy is in “good health”, said Vajpayee, who reported 5.9 percent growth, moderate inflation, a low trade deficit and a healthy balance of payments last year, and predicted seven percent growth this year.

In the future, relations with the EU should concentrate on the construction of freeways and ports, the upgrading of power grids, commercial aviation, telecommunications and fuel, the prime minister added.

Participants in the first summit — next year’s will be held in New Delhi — reached agreement on setting up joint ventures in banking, the automotive industry, air transport and telecommunications.

Thus the EU, the biggest investor in India and the source of 23 percent of the Asian country’s imports, “will boost its presence” in that market of one billion, stressed Guterres.

India, meanwhile, ranks 17th on the list of exporters to the EU, providing 1.5 percent of the bloc’s imports — a small but growing proportion, he added.

On the political front, the EU and India share the conviction that “international terrorism is the biggest threat to international and regional security, constituting a serious violation of the rights of innocent people and state security.”

With respect to the dispute over Kashmir, Vajpayee said that while India believed in dialogue, it was up to Pakistan to stop supporting terrorism — which he said was at the root of the wars between the two countries that along with China are Asia’s nuclear powers.

“My country would like a national political consensus” before signing the nuclear test-ban treaty, he added.

The EU and India agreed in Lisbon to more rigorous efforts against drug trafficking and drug abuse, a global problem and a serious threat to health, as well as a force fuelling international crime and terrorism, they underlined.

The two parties acknowledged the mutual benefits to be provided by an increase in investment flows in biotechnology and telecommunications. The EU recognised India’s significant development in those areas, and predicted a heightened dialogue towards the signing of an accord on cooperation in science and technology.

They also expressed profound concern over growing environmental degradation, and decided to initiate multilateral cooperation aimed at taking on the growing challenges of protection of the environment and the promotion of sustainable development.