India top priority for external agenda: EU

NEW DELHI: The European Union has unveiled a sweeping new vision to significantly scale up ties with India, including closer coordination to forge a multilateral rules-based world order and enhanced military-to-military relations and joint exercises.

The strategy will build on the partnership forged by the two sides in 2004, and recommends the EU should consider negotiating a Strategic Partnership Agreement to update the 1994 EU-India Cooperation Agreement. “India is on top of our priorities in terms of external agenda,” EU envoy Tomasz Kozlowski told the media on Wednesday. The EU is ready for a “leap forward” in ties and is “proposing to reinforce the EU-India strategic partnership”, he said.

As the EU works to develop joint defence capabilities, it is “essential” to develop militaryto-military ties with India, including high-level contacts and joint exercises, the document said. The strategy also calls for the two sides to help build the capacity of Indian Ocean and East African nations.

The strategy envisages cooperation to counter-terrorism, online radicalisation and terror financing, including the development of a platform for joint threat assessments and closer coordination at UN and Financial Action Task Force. It also proposes the two sides to join forces to “consolidate the rules-based global order, based on multilateralism with the UN and WTO at its core”.

The Modi government, diplomats said, has come to see Brussels as a useful partner for key programmes, including renewable energy and climate change. The EU is set to join the International Solar Alliance as a partner by the year-end.

Last month, the two sides discussed the political situation in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Nepal. “The EU has taken aboard India’s priorities and expectations and these can be seen throughout the new document,” said Kozlowski.