Brussels, 29/03/2016 (Agence Europe) - The fight against terrorism and the management of migration will be central to the 13th EU-India bilateral summit (the first since February 2012), in Brussels on Wednesday 30 March, at which the leaders of the EU - President of the European Council Donald Tusk, and his counterpart from the Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker - and Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will seek to give a political shot in the arm to the laborious EU-India free-trade negotiations, shelved since spring 2013. The summit will also launch partnerships in the fields of water, energy and the climate.
Joint commitment to tackle terrorism and radicalisation … Political cooperation and security cooperation, including the question of human rights, will be central to the talks. In the light of the incessant wave of Islamist terrorist attacks currently shaking the international community, the EU and India will step up their cooperation in the fight against terrorism. On Tuesday, the leaders will adopt a declaration aiming to reinforce the cooperation to fight extremism and radicalisation and to stem the flow of foreign fighters and weapons and sources of financing of terrorism.
…and to stem migration crises. In the wake of the migration crises in the Mediterranean and the Indian Ocean, the question of migration will also be extremely important. The EU and India will welcome the setting in place of a joint programme on migration and mobility, known as CAMM, which will cover legal migration, illegal migration and the trafficking in human beings, development issues related to migration and international protection. The aim of CAMM is to create the foundation for long-term cooperation.
Exchange on maritime protection affairs. The summit will also give the EU and Indian leaders the opportunity to discuss the sensitive issue of international arbitration by virtue of the UN Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS) with regard to several cases of imprisonment in India of European sailors involved in maritime protection missions in the Indian Ocean, but arrested in Indian territorial waters and sentenced on various grounds (in particular, these cases involve two Italian sailors, 14 Estonians and six British maritime guards).
Breathing new life into BITA negotiations. The leaders of both sides will also seek to breathe new life into negotiations for a bilateral agreement on trade and investment (BITA), launched in 2007, but shelved after 13 sessions of discussions at technical level (the last of these was in May 2013), following the general elections in India in spring 2014. At the time, the two parties were unable to overcome their differences of opinion on several key chapters (see EUROPE 10931).
“We remain committed to relaunching these negotiations, but we wish to relaunch them, if we see a possibility of concluding them”, a source close to the dossier at the Commission explained to us on Tuesday 29 March. The main stumbling locks remain the same: the EU expects a more accommodating attitude from India regarding the EU's tariff ambitions (particularly in the automotive and wines and spirits sectors), access to public procurement and protection of geographical locations, and India hopes to secure better access to the European market for its service providers, the source explained.
“We hope that the summit will bring renewed impetus into these stalled negotiations and allow us to discuss how to bridge the remaining gaps and how to allow us to resume these negotiations. As for the timeframe, it is difficult to estimate how long it will take. With good ambitions on both sides, we of course hope it will not take another 10 years to conclude these negotiations”, the source added.
The EU is India's number one trade partner. The starting ambition of the EU and India in these BITA negotiations was to dynamise a trade relationship which had seen their trade in goods double in a decade to stand at more than €80 billion in 2011, but drop to €72.5 billion in 2014, before climbing back up to €77.3 billion in 2015 (including €37.9 billion in exports for the EU). Their trade in services, on the other hand, has quadrupled in 10 years, rising from €5.2 billion in 2002 to €22.9 billion in 2014 (including €11.8 billion in exports for the EU).
With a 13% share in Indian trade in 2015, the EU is India's largest commercial partner (and India is its ninth-largest commercial partner) ahead of China (9.6%) in the United States (8.5%). The EU was also the biggest foreign investor in the country, with a stock of foreign direct investment (FDI) in India of €34.7 billion by the end of 2013 (India's stock in the EU was €9 billion).
Sustainability partnerships. At economic level, the discussions at the summit will also include the EU-India strategic partnership, which was launched in 2004, and the agenda up to 2020, which will lay down the priority actions in this framework for the next five years, including the fields of politics and security, trade and investment, the economy, global issues and exchanges between the peoples.
The EU and Indian leaders will launch two sustainability partnerships: one regarding water, which aims to support Indian initiatives for the River Ganges and access to clean water and provide opportunities to environmental businesses and technologies of the EU, the other in the field of energy and the climate, aiming to support the implementation of the international climate agreement concluded at COP 21 in late 2015, start EU-India climate dialogue and reinforce bilateral cooperation in the field of energy and renewables.
The parties are also expected to stress the importance of close cooperation in the field of research and innovation, in particular to bring together their agendas on the digital economy.
Regional/international security and the G20. As regards foreign policy, the summit, which will also be attended on the European side by the High Representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy Federica Mogherini will provide the opportunity to assess recent developments in the neighbourhoods of the EU and of India, including Ukraine, Syria, and the Middle East for the former, Afghanistan, Pakistan, North Korea, Nepal and China for the latter.
The parties will also discuss global challenges and with regard to this, will reaffirm the key role of the G20 in the recovery of global growth. They will also agree to start dialogue on the full and rapid implementation of the Agenda 2013 for sustainable development. (Original version in French by Emmanuel Hagry)