India’s new Europolitik

Context: Rising challenges in the Indo-Pacific necessitates closer cooperation between India and the European Union.

India-Europe (EU) relationship: Converging areas of the relationship

• Changing the strategic perception about Europe: 3 Recent developments signify this
  • India's support for France's membership of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA). In 2018 Emmanuel Macron unveiled an expansive framework for revitalising the strategic partnership.
  • Interest of Germany and Netherlands in the Indo-Pacific.
  • Security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is converging with the plans to enhance the relationship with the United Kingdom (UK). (which is defining its new international role due to BREXIT)
• Provides a look beyond the US-China competition: India has shed it post-colonial mental block against regional security cooperation with the post-imperial Europe.
  • While the US has become an important partner for India, it must be cautious of a future Sino-US relationship marked by intense competition and significant cooperation.
  • To cope with the uncertain political trajectory of the US, India is supplementing its American partnership with other mini-laterals such as India-Australia- Japan forum and the trilateral dialogue with France and Australia.

Challenges to India-EU partnership:

• Historical reasons: Both the bipolar Cold War dynamic (the East-West dimension) and the North-South framework (developing world vs developed) prevented India-EU partnership. (Quotidian diplomacy)
• Chinese challenge: Communist China, with its special sensitivity to "inter-imperialist" contradictions, invested massive political and diplomatic effort to cultivate European political classes and elites.
  • France, with its territories in the Western Indian Ocean and the South Pacific, was quick to identify the challenge.

Way Forward: Areas of cooperation between India-EU

• Resolving the disputes: India can help in resolving their lingering disputes leftover from the era of decolonisation in parts of the Western Indian Ocean. (with France and Britain)
• Europe's presence can be beneficial: Working with the Asian democracies, the EU can -
  • Mobilise massive economic resources for sustainable development of regional infrastructure,
  • Wield political influence and leverage its significant soft power to shape the Indo-Pacific discourse.
  • Significantly boost India's own comprehensive national power.

Conclusion: A strong coalition of Asian and European middle powers must now be an indispensable element of the geopolitics of the East.