Mayuri Mukherjee
Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s recently concluded his three-nation tour of Europe and Canada has been pegged a huge success. The refurbished Rafale deal that he signed in France, India’s stunning presence at the Hannover Messe trade fair, which he inaugurated, in Germany, and the Prime Minister’s now trademarked outreach to the diaspora in Canada, where he also formalised a key agreement for the supply of uranium that will fuel India’s nuclear power plants, have all been much appreciated. However, if there was one thing missing from the European segment of the Prime Minister’s tour, it was Europe itself.
As a bloc, the 28-member European Union is India’s single largest regional trading partner and one of the largest sources for Foreign Direct Investment in India. The EU also receives a significant amount of outward investment from India . Yet, neither did the Prime Minister travel to Brussels nor did he engage with the leadership of the European Union. Why?
The official reason is one scheduling problem. The Ministry of External Affairs had proposed an India-EU summit (now postponed forsometime later in the year) but the response from Brussels was less than enthusiastic. The latter dragged its feet, as it struggled to decide how best to respond to India’s continued detention of the two Italian Marines who killed two Indian fishermen in 2012. Earlier, the case was on the verge of becoming a major diplomatic debacle, as it moved at a glacial pace through the Indian judicial system, but both sides had since worked together to avoid a showdown.
However, in January this year, the European Parliament, which had just brought in a new set of leaders including Italian politician Feredica Mogherini as the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, turned up the heat. It issued a strong resolution accusing India of “a serious breach of human rights”, which rightly irked New Delhi.
After all, it was not like the two men were doing hard labour at Tihar. While one of the Marines, Salvatore Girone, is currently living in the Italian Embassy in Delhi, under a special court-ordered arrangement, the other, Massimiliano Latorre, is in Italy. After suffering a stroke in Delhi in August 2014, Mr Latorre was allowed to go home for four months for treatment. Moreover, in January, three days before the EU accused India of human rights violations, the Supreme Court had given permission to the recuperating Marine to stay back in Italy for another three months, on medical grounds.
Many believe that the EU’s hardline stance can be attributed to Ms Mogherini, who had earlier told the European Parliament that, “It’s good for everyone to be fully aware of how much of an impact the unresolved dispute of the two Italian Navy officials can have on relations between the EU and India.”
At the same time, some European diplomats have also pointed out that it’s unlikely for an individual leader to hold policy hostage in this manner. In fact, according to a report in a leading national daily, some European diplomats believe that the big boys in the club, France and Germany, let the EU mishandle the summit planning process, so that they themselves could deal with India on a one-to-one basis.
Now, these statements need not be taken at face value but certain ground realities are hard to ignore. For example, the India-EU free trade agreement is almost done but, ostensibly due to a lack of political will, it is yet to be finalised.
From India’s point of view, it is important to understand that while our overall trade figures with the EU are impressive, they can also be deceptive. A lion’s share of that trade pie is captured the UK; bring Germany and France to the table and there’s precious little left for the smaller European nations. Moreover, India has always been more comfortable with bilateral dealings rather than multilateral engagements. In other words, India doesn’t have enough incentive to go the extra mile for the EU.
And this is just on the economic side. On the political and diplomatic side, with regard to issues like the conflict in Ukraine and climate change, there is even lesser common ground. No wonder Europe got only two-pages in the Modi Government’s foreign policy booklet, released in January this year. In comparison, Africa got 14.
