Transcript of Special briefing by MEA on the visit of the President of the European Commission to India (February 28, 2025)
India - Ministry of External Affairs
February 28, 2025
Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Good evening, friends. I welcome you to this special briefing by Secretary (West), Shri Tanmaya Lal, on the visit of the President of the European Commission, who is also accompanied by the College of Commissioners. We have with us on the dais, accompanying Secretary (West), Ambassador of India to the European Union, Belgium, and Luxembourg, Shri Saurabh Kumar. We are also joined by Additional Secretary (Europe West) in the Ministry of External Affairs, Shri Piyush Srivastava. With that, I give the floor over to Secretary (West) for his initial remarks. Sir, the floor is yours.
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West): Thank you. Well, the President of the European Commission, Her Excellency Ursula von der Leyen, accompanied by the College of Commissioners, are on an official visit to India, as you all know. 22 of the Commissioners are part of the EC delegation, and this is really an unprecedented and a landmark visit on many counts.
This is one of the first such visits by the College in its new mandate, and the first which has been outside Europe. And the new mandate, of course, began in December 2024. This visit signals the high priority that is attached by both sides to the strategic partnership that we share, and the visit of the entire College also highlights the very extensive breadth of our partnership and engagement.
President von der Leyen met Prime Minister Modi, and the two leaders held extensive discussions, including in the delegation-level talks.
In addition to these talks, there have been 20 individual ministerial meetings since yesterday, again something very unprecedented, where the College of Commissioners have met their counterpart ministers. These meetings have included meetings of the bilateral cluster, the three meetings of the ministerial level for the three working groups of the Trade and Technology Council, and the Trade and Technology Council Ministerial itself. 20 Cabinet Ministers and Ministers of State from India also participated in the delegation-level talks today.
The themes covered in these bilateral ministerial engagements, in addition to the trade and FTA and digital green technologies to supply chains under the TTC, some of the other themes that were discussed were ranging from finance to renewable energy to environment, research and innovation to skilling and education, space to defence, connectivity and mobility, sustainable urbanization to water, to fisheries, women empowerment, to youth. So this really gives an idea of how extensive and broad-ranging the discussions were held at the ministerial level, and this explains the breadth of our strategic partnership that we share.
I would like to share some of the program elements briefly. Yesterday, upon arrival, President von der Leyen was received at the airport by Honorable Minister of State for Health and Family Welfare, Shrimati Anupriya Patel, and was accorded a ceremonial reception and a cultural welcome. Thereafter, she visited Rajghat to pay tributes to Mahatma Gandhi. External Affairs Minister had called on President von der Leyen last evening.
Today, the plenary meetings were followed by a banquet lunch hosted by the Prime Minister in honor of President von der Leyen and the College of Commissioners. And later this evening, the Confederation of Indian Industry, CII, will host a business event with leaders of industry, and they will also host a dinner for the delegation.
Earlier today, President von der Leyen experienced the digital payment transaction, UPI, at one of the venues, and the College of Commissioners also traveled by the hydrogen bus to the venue.
These two areas, of course, digital transformation and green energy transition, are areas where India is developing our capabilities very quickly. And, also these are some of the key areas, where India and EU are collaborating very closely.
Among the outcomes, there has been a Leaders' Statement, which I understand will be issued shortly. It highlights the important context of the visit and the significance, and also the guidance that has been provided by the leaders to their teams to take the strategic partnership forward in very, very substantial ways. Some of the key outcomes relate to trade, investment, technology, mobility, connectivity, defence, and these broad themes.
In a major outcome, the leaders have directed their teams that the India-EU FTA should be concluded within the year. This is, of course, a very important outcome, as negotiations have been ongoing on this aspect.
There has also been very clear progress on the different working groups under the Trade and Technology Council. These working groups, just to refresh your memory, the themes are from strategic technologies, digital governance, and digital connectivity. That is working group one. Then green and clean energy technologies, and that is the working group two. Trade, investment, and resilient value chains; is the theme of the working group three. There has been very extensive discussions and progress in all three of these tracks.
On technology further, there has been progress in the implementation of the MOU on semiconductors, from boosting supply chains to facilitating talent exchange and skilling. Also, there has been MOU between the Bharat 6G Alliance and EU 6G Smart Networks and Service Industry Associations, and extensive discussions were held on taking this cooperation forward.
There is also a deepening collaboration between the India's AI Mission and European AI Office. On clean and green energy, there is joint funding being announced of 60 million Euros for research projects ranging from electric vehicles to marine plastics, and also to projects on waste to energy, especially to green hydrogen. There has been progress on the third phase of the work plan on clean energy and climate partnership that India and EU share.
An India-EU green hydrogen forum will be held, and an India-EU business summit on offshore wind energy is also planned.
Another area of important collaboration has been connectivity, and in that sphere, both sides discussed the significance of the IMEC connectivity initiative and various ways to take this forward.
On the defence and security domain, especially maritime security, the EU has decided to join India's Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative, IPOI, and EU is also joining as an observer or a dialogue partner in the IORA initiative.
There was also discussions and cooperation on improving maritime domain awareness, especially the cooperation between fusion centers in terms of sharing information. Similar cooperation was discussed between the Indian Navy and the Operation ASPIDES of the European Union.
There was also discussion on how India could join projects under EU's Permanent Structured Cooperation, which is called the PESCO, EU's security and defence programme.
It was also decided to hold focussed discussions on defence industrial partnerships going forward. An India-EU space dialogue will be launched soon, and both sides also decided to pursue trilateral cooperation projects, both in Africa and also in the Indo-Pacific region. This area has been another important area of collaboration, since both India and EU have extensive development partnership programs across various geographies, and both sides have now decided to pursue such cooperation projects.
The Leaders' Statement and the Trade and Technology Council Joint Statement will be shared with you. I would like to add some more on the recent interactions that have been held between the two sides, and some of the background information relating to the extent of our partnership. Among the recent interactions, of course, last Friday, External Affairs Minister had met the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs (HR/VP) Ms. Kaja Kallas, in Johannesburg on the sidelines of the G20 Foreign Ministers' meeting.
Last month, Commerce and Industry Minister had travelled to Brussels to hold detailed talks with the EU Trade Commissioner, Maroš Šefčovič, who was also part of the College visiting currently.
Prime Minister Modi and President von der Leyen have met seven times earlier, both in terms of bilateral settings but also multilateral settings, for example, G7 and G20 meetings. This was the third visit of President von der Leyen to India as the EC President. Her previous visits were in September 2023 during the G20 summit, and earlier in April 2022 in a standalone bilateral visit.
In recent months, for example, if we just look at the last 18 months, there have been more than 110 interactions at the head-of-state, head-of-government and ministerial level between India and Europe. This is a very substantial number, of course, and it shows the extent of the intensifying and diversifying engagement between India and countries and regions of Europe and member states of the EU. Between India and the EU, there are 30 bilateral institutional dialogue mechanisms which meet regularly at the senior official level.
Our strategic partnership is completing 20 years. It was started in 2004 and now the two sides, the two leaders have decided to accelerate and elevate this partnership further. The trade, technology, talent, innovation, investment, green transition, defence production, security and resilient supply chains are some of the key areas of our strategic partnership. India's largest trading partner in goods is the European Union. The trade in goods has nearly doubled over the last decade to reach a figure of USD 135 billion and the figure has grown three times over the past two decades. Trade in services stands at around USD 53 billion.
EU is a major investment partner for India. EU's collective FDI into India is nearly USD120 billion since the year 2000 and India's investment into the EU is also growing and it is now estimated at around USD 40 billion. If you look at the business cooperation, there are an estimated 6,000 companies from EU countries which have active business presence in India, and similarly around 1,200 Indian companies are estimated to have business presence in EU countries. So this is a really very-very substantial trade, investment and business partnership that we share.
Another very important element is the people-to-people contact. The Indian diaspora in the European Union continues to grow. It is estimated at around 1.65 million currently, and this includes 120,000 Indian students as estimated. So these are some of the numbers that give you the extent of the close strategic partnership that we share.
As I mentioned in the outcomes today, the areas were really trade in terms of the announcement on the timelines for FTA, the concrete progress achieved in the Trade and Technology Council, among various technology tracks ranging from Artificial Intelligence to semiconductors to quantum computing, high performance quantum computing, the connectivity relating to IMEC initiative, the EU's joining of IPOI, Indo-Pacific Ocean Initiative, the push on green hydrogen and the furthering of cooperation in the sphere of space cluster. So these are some of the areas that are really taking this strategic partnership forward. As I mentioned, this has been really historic and unprecedented in terms of the range of interactions that were held at the same time at the leaders level and also at the ministerial level with 22 commissioners from the EU traveling to India and 20 ministers taking part in the delegation level talks and also 20 bilateral meetings over the last one, one and a half days.
So this will complete my initial briefing.
Ayushi Agarwal, ANI: Sir, this is Ayushi from ANI , just wanted to know how much was Russia-Ukraine discussed between the two leaders, and also was there any discussion on the enforcement of EU sanctions on Russia?
Sudhi Ranjan Sen, Bloomberg: Sir, thank you, Sudhi Ranjan from Bloomberg. Two questions, sir. One, in the free trade agreement when setting the date, did the two leaders, or the two sides have any discussion on spirits, motor vehicles export because that is one of the issues that has been stalling this entire issue. And if so, has there been any commitment from either side to look into it? And on the IMEC, sir, was Israel-Gaza war discussed and any chance of relooking at the routing of IMEC?
Shubham Batra, Reuters: Hi, Sir, Shubham from Reuters. Was the carbon border mechanism discussed at all in terms of the EU, and could there be any possibility of any flexibility for India in that.
Ileana, TASS News Agency: Yes, good afternoon. Ileana, TASS News Agency. I wonder in what form European side raised the issue of sanctions, and as we saw in the media, there were a lot of publications with the reference to European sources that during this visit, the delegation from EU will raise this issue, sanctions against Russia. So in what form does the European side raise this issue, and how do you react to their form of ... do you feel some kind of pressure from their side on this particular issue? Thank you.
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West): Okay, so CBAM, well, CBAM of course is a concern for a large number of countries, especially in the global south. We have highlighted our concerns to our EU partners on a number of occasions.
We have also noted that the EU has made some modifications to CBAM framework to simplify some of the aspects and we are examining the implications of that. And we hope that the concerns of the developing country partners will be taken into account and addressed suitably in any such scheme.
On the FTA, of course the two sides discussed ... there was a ministerial separate meeting and also the main talks. The emphasis was on how to get the FTA done quickly and there was a clear political commitment and agreement to do it quickly, and that is also reflected in the direction that were given by the leaders to the two sides.
On IMEC, yes, IMEC both sides ... strong interest in pursuing the project which will bring together India and Europe in a major connectivity route and the discussion was how to take this forward despite the problems that may be being faced at the moment. There is also progress going on in different aspects of IMEC at the same time.
In any meeting of global leaders, the issues of international global interest of mutual concern and mutual interest are discussed. And relating to the issue ... your question about sanctions, no that was not discussed.
Sidhant Sibal, WION: Hi sir, Sidhant from WION. How much was the issue of cross-border terrorism, that basically means terrorism from Pakistan being discussed, because earlier today at an address in Delhi, she pointed, she mentioned about that. And second question, how much the focus or emphasis was on China during the talks?
Rishikesh Kumar, PTI: Sir, Rishikesh from PTI. So was there any discussion held on threat posed by Chinese equipment, and is there any consensus on how India and EU can reduce the dependency on Chinese products, especially as the President has mentioned that we should promote the dependable supply chain?
Bramh Prakash Dubey, News India: Sir, Bramh Prakash Dubey, News India se. Mera sawal yeh hain ki Visa ko le kar jo discussion huwa hain Bharat aur EU ke beech, wo kis taraha ka discussion huwa hain, kis taraha ka benefit hoga, kyunki students ko bahut saari pareshani aati hain, khas taur pe European countries me Visa lene ke liye. Thank you.
[Approximate Translation: Question in Hindi] Sir, Bramh Prakash Dubey from News India. My question is regarding the discussion on visas between India and the EU. What kind of discussion took place, and what benefits will it bring, considering that students face a lot of difficulties, especially in obtaining visas for European countries? Thank you.
Keshav Padmanabhan, ThePrint: Thank you, Sir. Keshav Padmanabhan from ThePrint. Two questions, one, when you say that regional and global issues were discussed, were there any pointed discussions on the situation in our neighborhood with regards to Bangladesh. Was any of this raised at the political level with the European Union? And secondly, when we talk about the free trade agreement, we've heard a lot about the EU's concerns, wine, spirits, automobiles; can you give us a sense of what are India's concerns when it comes to tariffs, especially the EU's protectionism with regards to its own agricultural market? So can you sort of give us a sense of what India's issues with EU's FTA, with this FTA is? Thank you.
Rishabh Pant, Times Now: Good evening, Secretary, Rishabh from Times Now. Sir, just a related question. A senior EU official has mentioned that without agreement on cars, wines, and spirits, an FTA is very unlikely. So they are pushing for, you know, tariff cut on import of cars, wines and spirits. So are we ready to accommodate it, and where is the negotiation right now? Because this has been a constant message coming in from Brussels that India needs to cut tariffs on these issues, A. And B, sir, as Sidhant asked on cross-border terrorism, there have been a lot of discussion between India and EU on terrorism. Was there any concrete thing, given that we are also talking about a road map from 2025?
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West): Thank you. I think several questions on FTA. I mentioned, recently, last month, Commerce and Industry Minister traveled to Brussels, where he held talks with his counterpart Trade Commissioner Šefčovič. Trade Commissioner is here, part of the EU delegation. The next round of the talks are also due soon. There is extensive and very intense negotiation going on, and the political direction is clear. Now, I would not like to go into the details on individual products, that is for the negotiators to resolve. But both sides have agreed that this is an important FTA. It has to be done quickly, and it has to be done in a balanced and mutually beneficial and equitable manner.
The question on Visas. There are regular discussions on Visa and consular issues between India and EU. This was also discussed during this visit. Last year, the EU had announced a Schengen Cascade Visa Scheme that is aimed at facilitating longer-term visas for frequent travelers from India. And separately, India and EU member states have also been discussing what are known as the mobility and migration agreements to facilitate the growing legal pathways for our professional skilled workers who are increasingly in demand in EU countries, and also students. So many of these things are already being done. India and EU also has a separate mechanism, I mean not only the individual countries, but India and EU, which is called the CAMM, and there again many of these issues are taken up.
There is a clear agreement that this is a mutually beneficial area, and we must try and explore ways where trained talent can find a facilitated pathway from India to Europe because of the requirements and how the European technology and Indian talent can match each other. So there have been very positive discussions on this sector. You may know that mobility partnership agreements ... India and some of the countries in the EU have already signed up. We have done agreements with Germany, France, Italy, Portugal, Austria, and Denmark, who are among the EU members. So this is a very active area of discussion and cooperation going forward. India is also the largest recipient of their Blue Card scheme and the scholarships, for example, under the Erasmus framework. So we are very much looking forward to further facilitation of this area, which is in mutual interest.
The supply chains and the resilient supply chains have been a very important area of discussion between India and the European Union. And as I mentioned, the working group three from the Trade and Technology Council actually focuses on these aspects. So yes, how to make the supply chains resilient, what will it imply for various technology sectors, manufacturing sectors in different areas, engineering, defence, so many other aspects was discussed and is being taken forward very strongly by both sides.
Yes, terrorism was discussed. It is an important area when we discuss the security issues and they form an important aspect of our discussions. Both sides are very conscious of the need for deepening cooperation in controlling and combating terrorism, including its financing, and they collaborate at various platforms individually and in a multi-lateral context to take this cooperation forward.
John Reed, FT: John Reed from the FT. Ms. von der Leyen spoke about setting a deadline by both sides of concluding the FTA by the end of this year. Can you that that is indeed India's goal as well? And if so, is that a realistic goal, given all the issues that divide the two sides?
Raghavendra Verma, German Television, ZDF: Raghavendra Verma from German Television, ZDF. My question is also regarding the FTA. Has something changed in the last few years that brings the confidence between the two sides, that it will be easier to conclude? Recently, there have been these tariff disruptions from the United States. Does it make it easier or difficult for the two partners to conclude this FTA? Sir, you have not gone into the specifics of the products, but these products are aligned to many of the member countries in the EU. Is India also discussing such issues with the individual countries in the EU to make this faster? Lastly, the UK FTA is said to be much easier to sign than the India - EU, and that has also not happened for so long. Is there any progress on that?
Alexander Gasiuk, Rossiyskaya Gazeta: Alexander Gasiuk, Rossiyskaya Gazeta, Russia. I was wondering, has the Ukrainian conflict come up during the negotiations, specifically in the context of U.S.-Russian negotiations that have taken place recently? And secondly, since U.S. President Donald Trump has threatened both India and EU with new tariffs, has the issue of U.S. approach towards global trade been discussed? Thank you.
Ubeer, the Tribune: Sir, this is Ubeer from the Tribune. Sir, my question is, you said that this delegation from Europe travelled in this hydrogen bus. Can you please elaborate what was the idea behind it?
Shri Tanmaya Lal, Secretary (West): Okay, so regarding the hydrogen bus, of course, the idea behind the hydrogen bus was to show the extent of work that is ongoing in terms of renewable energy and green technologies. Green transition is very much part of India's priorities. We have set very ambitious renewable energy targets, and green hydrogen will form a very important sector in our pathway towards those targets. And that is also one of the areas where Europe and India, EU and India, have a lot of expertise, technology collaboration to share, which is ongoing. And this shows both the growing capabilities in terms of technology, its use for, in this case, public mobility in India, and the interest, this being an area of interest for both the sides. So that was the idea behind the bus ride.
On the FTA, of course, the negotiations have been ongoing. When you have two large economies, two very diverse economies, and on one side, EU, which comprises of 27 member states, the negotiations will take time. But there has been a clear determination, and clear decision by the leaders today that the FTA has to be finalized within the year. So there is no doubt upon that. This is also reflected in the Leaders' Statement. And as you mentioned, it was also mentioned during the press remarks done by the leaders. So there is a clear direction available now, which is always helpful when the negotiators meet. It helps resolve many, many difficult questions sometimes. And we are very confident that this will be done.
And in terms of your question regarding various products, that is a given. I mean, there are different concerns for both sides, always are in any negotiation, especially in trade negotiations. But as I said, now a decisive clear mandate has been given by the leaders to their teams.
On other global issues, as I mentioned, the global issues of mutual interest are always part of the discussions. But if you really see, this visit has been about the strategic partnership between India and EU, and how to both elevate it and accelerate it going forward by the two sides. Just if you see the extent of the bilateral meetings that took place, 20 ministerial bilateral meetings, 20 ministers and 22 commissioners being there during the talks. So the focus was clearly and very firmly on what India and EU are doing together and what we can do together, and how we can further deepen this partnership going forward. So that was the focus of this visit.
Shri Randhir Jaiswal, Official Spokesperson: Thank you, sir. With that, ladies and gentlemen, we come to the close of this press briefing.
Thank you very much for your participation.
New Delhi
February 28, 2025
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