By Salman Haidar
Former Indian Foreign Secretary

The 9th India-EU Summit had just concluded in Marseilles, France. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh went there for the purpose, meeting France’s President Sarkozy, current President of the EU, as well as European Commission President Barroso, among other senior dignitaries. Both sides claim that this annual exercise is something to which they attach a great deal of importance. 

The EU is the world’s largest and most potent economic grouping and its ties with India are expanding fast. Trade is booming, FDI from Europe to India is on a steep upward path, and much is happening in a variety of fields like civil aviation, science and technology, and several others. So there is shared satisfaction at where the two sides have reached, and genuine belief that matters will continue to improve. Yet this Summit has become an annual ritual that fails to stir anyone’s blood. Marseilles was no exception. There is no doubting the significance of the event or the extent to which it serves to advance causes that both support and promote. Nevertheless, in public perception as revealed in media attention, the Marseilles meeting may be marked more by what happened outside than within the conference chamber.

Many reasons have been advanced to explain the grayness of these India-EU occasions. The EU is described as an economic giant that is yet to find its place as a global political force. Its aspiration to achieve a unified political structure matching its economic coherence has been affirmed but members seldom speak with one voice when it counts. The EU heavyweights in particular, major countries with rich diplomatic traditions and far-flung global interests, have been conspicuously reluctant to yield political initiative to a centralized authority located in Brussels. This constrains the EU’s interlocutors to deal separately with different members, which can be useful for them on some occasions but can also add complications to the task. No comparable room for manoeuvre or confusion of purpose is to be found in trade and economic matters. The rest of the world has been waiting for a unified EU voice to emerge, in line with what that body itself has aspired to, but so far without much result. Even though the trappings of political unity within the EU have become more prominent in the last decade, this has not greatly affected the substance of the matter.

The rapid expansion of the EU into the 27-member body of today has meant that there has been a lot of intra-EU work to be done to harmonize legislation and administrative practice among the membership. This could have had the effect of slowing down the fashioning of EU’s unified international personality, which is possibly a more complex matter. Certainly the widening of EU priorities to include issues other than economic matters has come about only slowly, as India has witnessed. When the EU first developed its own ‘Look East’ policy, of which the annual EU-Asia Summit is a feature, India was not invited to be part of it. Seen from Brussels, India might have seemed bogged down in its problems, its economy burdened with endless regulations, bereft of creative enterprise. By contrast, the ‘Asian Tigers’ roamed free and dominated the jungle. It was with them that Europe wished to establish closer ties through the ASEM forum that brought together the EU and ‘ASEAN plus Three’ (China, Japan, Republic of Korea) in biennial summits. In such meetings, economic issues were to the fore and discussion of political structures in Asia, which could be divisive, commanded much less attention. It was only after India broke free and started its rapid economic rise that it was acknowledged to be potentially a useful partner in the ASEM process, which it has now been invited to join. Today India has been described by a senior EU Commissioner as ‘indispensable’ to EU dialogue with Asia, obviously because of the remarkable turnaround in its economic circumstances. The EU as a multilateral organization remains only distantly engaged in the affairs of our region, so despite the strengthening interest it displays, on many key matters its voice remains muted, as was once again evident at the Marseilles meeting. Maybe this will change progressively as the political integration of Europe advances.   

More eye-catching than the Summit itself was what took place around it. The Prime Minister had a double purpose in going to France, an official bilateral visit as well as the EU Summit. The former became the main draw, for it was to be the occasion for a major agreement between the two countries to permit the sale of French civilian nuclear technology to India. The road for a deal of this nature had been cleared by Dr. Manmohan Singh’s Washington visit a few days previously, and France was quick to act. Indeed, France has been ready for closer ties in this important area ever since the first steps on the India-US nuclear deal were taken. Former President Chirac in the waning days of his presidency paid a visit to India at short notice even before President Bush came. It was an imaginative gesture on Mr. Chirac’s part and it has now fructified in the agreement signed by his successor. France has much to offer, and it is to be expected that French nuclear technology will now become available for India’s civilian nuclear power plants. This comes as a liberation from the international constraints on transfer of nuclear technology so long imposed on India.

As it turned out, a more immediate issue also came in for attention, for the Prime Minister’s visit came at a time when attacks on Christians by communalist criminals were taking place in Orissa while the State administration apparently stood by helplessly. Europe was stirred and distressed by what was reported of these events and there were official reactions of concern at the Vatican and in the Italian capital. The matter seems to have been discussed at the Summit meeting too. Given the lamentable state of affairs back home, there was not much the Prime Minister could say in extenuation. Europe’s sensitivity on such issues is not to be brushed aside: ideals of universal human rights, equality and secularism in the modern state were first fashioned and expressed in Europe, which remains vigilant on their behalf even when its own practice may fall below the ideal.

Another subject that claimed attention was the nuclear programme of Iran. Like the EU, India has been opposed to Iran’s programme where it departs from that country’s commitments under the NPT, to which it is a signatory.  Of course, this subject has acquired special resonance after India lined up with the USA and others against Iran at the IAEA. When questioned by the media in France on this subject, Dr. Singh reiterated the Indian position and added that India would not like to see other nuclear weapon states emerge in our region. As the India-Europe dialogue expands, it will unavoidably delve into difficult, unresolved issues like this one.

[Source: The Statesman/ANN]