A Long Time Coming

The relationship between Europe and India is on the cusp of change. Later this month, in a historic first, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will serve as guest of honor, a position reserved for India’s top partners, at the country’s Republic Day ceremony. At the subsequent EU-India summit, the two sides are likely to sign a long-elusive free trade agreement (FTA) and an expansive security and defense partnership. They are also expected to announce initiatives designed to boost skilled migration, and to foster cooperation between European and Indian industry to enhance economic security. 

There are several other positive developments. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz just undertook his first official visit to India, also his first to a non-NATO ally. Accompanied by a substantial business delegation, he secured many agreements on defense industrial cooperation, semiconductors, and critical minerals. Recent German governments have made a point of sending top leadership to India before official visits to China, and Merz’s visit continues that convention. French President Emmanuel Macron is due to follow in February to cement his own country’s ties with New Delhi on emerging technologies, thereby broadening an already substantial and critical strategic partnership. India’s foreign minister, in a breakthrough for India’s small-group diplomacy in Europe, just joined a Weimar Format meeting for the first time. Lastly, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to visit the continent in spring for the next India-Nordic summit. 

For some observers this momentum is the result of the rocky relationships that Europe and India have with the United States. In a world of fractured alliances and partnerships, Europe and India need each other like never before. But the groundwork for their current ties was laid over the last decade. Structural factors such as competition with China, and India’s policy of diversification that led it to focus on ties with the West, have brought them closer and raised bilateral ambitions. The relationship is, however, not without divergences, particularly on approaches to Russia. 

Based on interviews with policymakers in New Delhi, Paris, Berlin, The Hague, and Brussels, this piece will trace the evolution of the “India agenda” in European foreign policy and lay out Europe’s position among New Delhi’s foreign policy priorities.