There has been a flurry of recent diplomatic activity between India and the West. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was in France and the United States earlier this month; this week India and the U.K. resumed free trade negotiations; and Donald Trump is scheduled to visit India later this year when New Delhi hosts the Quad Summit for the first time. Adding to this is European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s visit to India this week accompanied by the College of EU Commissioners.
While this indicates a consensus in the West on engaging New Delhi, the reality is there is a growing trans-Atlantic split on India.
Such a divide is not new. Europe and the U.S. see India as an important partner, but for different reasons. Where Washington sees India through a largely geopolitical lens, European capitals see India primarily through a geoeconomic lens. This is evident in the technology space where the EU (through its Trade and Technology Council), the U.S. (through its Initiative on Critical and Emerging Technology (iCET), which was recently renamed the TRUST Initiative), and the U.K. (through its Technology Security Initiative) are all seeking to engage India in the area of critical and emerging technologies. But the rationale for doing so varies, with European countries seeking to strengthen economic resilience while the U.S. focus is on maintaining primacy in its geopolitical rivalry with China. This also explains the relative success of the US iCET over the EU’s TTC, with the former adopting a more strategic approach toward technology cooperation with India that has been facilitated by greater senior policy level and private sector engagement and inter-agency coordination.
At a normative level, Europe continues to cling to value-driven diplomacy, with India fitting into the narrative of a “likeminded country” or “trusted geography.” However, in the U.S. the “friend-shoring” narrative has weakened under Trump as he pursues a more transactional and value-neutral foreign policy.
Adding to all this is a growing trans-Atlantic rift on the war in Ukraine alongside increasingly divergent positions between Brussels and Washington on the India-Russia relationship.
EU Interest in India
In Europe, the push to deepen relations with India is not new. It builds on earlier initiatives, including the EU-India connectivity partnership, concluded in 2021; ongoing EU-India free trade negotiations and over 50 sectoral dialogues between New Delhi and Brussels. A roadmap for their strategic partnership is due to be renegotiated this year. However, the EU-India relationship is finding newfound urgency in the Trumpian era as the U.S. president seeks to challenge the rules-based international order (that Washington ironically helped to establish).
As Europe clings to values in an increasingly valueless world, India presents as an ideal partner given its credentials as the world’s largest democracy. India’s large IT-educated workforce, strong digital ecosystem, and ambitions to emerge as a global manufacturing hub offer a means to dent China’s dominance of global supply-chains. India’s demographic dividend and status as the world’s most populous country and fastest growing major economy offers a vast market and engine of global growth. It is a valued partner in the Global South on key issues of global governance – from climate to digital public infrastructure – offering a more benign worldview that is non-Western, but not explicitly anti-Western (unlike China, Russia, and Iran). Referring to India as “one of our most trusted friends and allies,” von der Leyen has committed to strengthening the partnership between Europe and India in the areas of ‘trade, economic security, and resilient supply chains, along with a common tech agenda and reinforced security and defense cooperation.’
Russia Factor Complicates Engagement
However, the EU’s relationship with India is held hostage to broader geopolitical developments. One of the reasons that India has been among the most positive about Trump’s re-election is an expectation that he will reset relations with Russia. Now that he is seeking to “do a deal” with Vladimir Putin – as evidenced by the recent vote in the United Nations where the US refused to condemn Russia’s actions – New Delhi has been vindicated in its position. Any push to end Russia’s international isolation will be welcomed by New Delhi on the grounds of making Moscow less beholden to Beijing.
While New Delhi will welcome Washington’s moves to re-normalize relations with Moscow, Brussels and other European capitals look on with trepidation. Even before last week’s bilateral meeting between Russian and American diplomats in Saudi Arabia, there were signs of a growing trans-Atlantic divide on Russia. The war in Ukraine is on Europe’s doorsteps, posing an existential threat to the security of the continent. Meanwhile, the U.S. commitment to Europe was always wobbly at best as Washington has consistently tried to “pivot” toward the Indo-Pacific in order to focus on what many perceive to be the real long-term strategic threat to its interests: China.
This made Washington less critical of the India-Russia relationship as it sees India as a bulwark against the rise of China. European capitals, while concerned about China, maintain a less confrontational posture toward Beijing (as noted by von der Leyen’s speech at Davos in January where she called for seeking “mutual benefits” in the relationship with China). Hence, the narrative of India as a counterbalance to China does not hold the same weight in the India-EU relationship.
Several European countries (including the EU) have unveiled Indo-Pacific strategies in recent years – indicating a growing recognition of the interlinkages between the Indo-Pacific and Euro-Atlantic as an inter-connected geopolitical space. However the Euro-Atlantic theater remains the priority for Brussels and other European capitals, especially as the U.S. commitment to NATO looks increasingly shaky and European countries are being called upon to step up in providing for their own security needs.
Conscious of greater scrutiny of the India-Russia relationship in European capitals, New Delhi has engaged in a recent flurry of diplomatic outreach. This included Modi’s visit to Ukraine last August, the first by an Indian prime minister. However, Putin’s planned visit to India this year – his first since the Russian invasion of Ukraine – will fuel renewed criticism of the bilateral relationship in the EU.
New Delhi’s narrative of not being an enabler of the war in Ukraine has become harder to sustain amid revelations that India is the second-largest supplier of restricted critical technologies to Russia. New Delhi is not going to abandon its relationship with Moscow given its strategic compulsions – over 50 percent of India’s in-service military platforms are of Russian origin and last year India overtook China as the largest buyer of Russian crude (much of which goes to European markets in the form of refined product). In December, both countries concluded their largest energy deal with a 10-year agreement for the supply of 500,000 barrels per day, equivalent to half of Russia’s seaborne oil exports.
India’s relations with Russia may be complicated by pressure on New Delhi to buy more American products to address Trump’s chronic obsession with the trade imbalance. Reflecting this, India’s oil imports from Russia fell by a quarter in February while imports from the U.S. almost doubled during the same period. On the defense front, Trump’s offer to sell the F-35 fighter jet to India will go head to head with Russia’s own fifth-generation aircraft (Su-57).
However, these developments are unlikely to derail the India-Russia relationship, given a historical affinity that can be traced to Soviet support for India during the Cold War. Indian External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar has referred to the bilateral relationship as the “one constant” in world politics over the last half century while Defense Minister Rajnath Singh referred to the friendship between both countries as “higher than the highest mountain and deeper than the deepest ocean.”
India: Trumpian Before Trump
There are several underlying fault lines in the EU-India relationship, which will not be easily overcome. The fact that the real action in India’s engagement with Europe often takes place at the bilateral level is a chronic challenge. Nowhere is this more apparent than in the Indo-French relationship. Modi’s visit to France earlier this month was his sixth as prime minister and both countries continue to deepen relations in several strategically important areas – from defense to energy and artificial intelligence.
Even areas of seeming convergence in the EU-India relationship are subject to fissures. While the EU is a leading trade partner and source of foreign investment for India, New Delhi’s protectionist proclivities remain well-entrenched. This explains the slow pace of FTA negotiations, which have been off and on since 2007. On the Indian side, there is frustration with the EU over legislation such the Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (or CBAM), which is seen as a form of green protectionism and Europe’s anti-migrant sentiment (despite the conclusion of several mobility agreements between New Delhi and European countries).
Exacerbating this is India’s longstanding commitment to “strategic autonomy.” which entails maintaining relations with all poles of influence in the international system. This includes countries with which Europe maintains a history of difficult relations, including Russia, but also Iran and now potentially even the United States.
In a sense, India was Trumpian before Trump. It has always pursued a largely transactional and value-neutral foreign policy. Taking account of this, the EU will need to temper its expectations of India, recognizing that it is not the likeminded country that it thinks it is.