Relevance: GS-2: Bilateral, regional and global groupings and agreements involving India and/or affecting India’s interests.

Key Phrases: EU-India Partnership, Indo-Pacific Region, EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, Ministerial Forum in Paris, France’s ongoing presidency of the EU.

Why in News?

• Europe and its key Indo-Pacific partners are joining forces to deliver a positive agenda for the region at the ministerial Forum taking place tomorrow in Paris under France’s ongoing presidency of the EU.
• This first-of-its-kind event brings together the foreign affairs ministers from EU member states and 30 Indo-Pacific countries, including India’s Foreign Minister Jaishankar, with France and the EU as co-chairs.

Key Highlights

• The issues at stake in this crucial region, including security challenges, are of concern to all EU countries.
• Europe’s answer is a comprehensive and positive agenda of solutions, rather than a logic of military confrontation.
• This is also the guiding principle of the EU Strategy for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, unveiled in September 2021.
• Europe can offer the countries of the region a sustainable, transparent model for preserving their sovereignty, and an alternative to other models, such as China’s.
• Tomorrow’s Forum is France’s contribution to translating this strategy into actions.

EU Strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific

Background

• The EU and the Indo-Pacific are highly interconnected.
• The Indo-Pacific region is increasingly becoming strategically important for the EU.
• The region's growing economic, demographic, and political weight makes it a key player in shaping the international order and in addressing global challenges.
• The EU is already the top investor, the leading development cooperation partner and one of the biggest trading partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
• Together, the Indo-Pacific and Europe hold over 70% of the global trade in goods and services, as well as over 60% of foreign direct investment flows.
• However, current dynamics in the Indo-Pacific have given rise to intense geopolitical competition adding to increasing tensions on trade and supply chains as well as in technological, political and security areas.
• This is the reason why the EU has decided to step up its strategic engagement with the Indo-Pacific region.

Elements of the EU's Indo-Pacific Strategy

• The EU's increased engagement in the Indo-Pacific aims at maintaining a free and open Indo-Pacific for all while building strong and lasting partnerships.
• The basic message is that the EU will deepen its engagement with partners in the Indo-Pacific to respond to emerging dynamics that are affecting regional stability.
• Seven priority areas for EU action-
  • Sustainable and inclusive prosperity;
  • Green transition;
  • Ocean governance;
  • Digital governance and partnerships;
  • Connectivity;
  • Security and defence; Human security.

Key Focus Areas to be Discussed

• Stakeholder nations are working on concrete projects in three priority areas — security and defense, connectivity and common goods.
• Forum will focus on strengthening connections between Europe and the Indo-Pacific, particularly in the air and digital domains.
  • The EU and India have already concluded a Connectivity Partnership (last May in Porto), which can be a pillar of this wider initiative.
• At this Forum, France and India will work together to place a truly strategic EU-India partnership at the center of a new deal for the Indo-Pacific.
• The EU is working on a coordinated EU maritime presence in the Indian Ocean.

India-EU-Indo Pacific Region

• On the issues of security and defense, connectivity and common goods, India has a central role to play.
• France, itself a nation of the Indo-Pacific, has a long-standing commitment to upholding the law of the sea in the region, particularly through permanent naval presence and joint exercises, such as our annual “Varuna” drills with India.
• Other EU countries are increasingly present at the national level.
• Stronger European engagement will help to better respond to the security challenges of this vast region.
• This would be a significant step that demonstrates the EU’s role as a provider of stability in the region.
• India’s recent engagement with European powers in Indo-Pacific
  • India’s support for France’s membership of the Indian Ocean Rim Association (IORA).
  • India’s backing for a larger European role in the Indo-Pacific.
  • India has welcomed the interest of Germany and Netherlands in building a new geopolitical architecture in the Indo-Pacific.
  • Some of the crucial areas that India and EU can work together include joint efforts in capacity building against challenges like piracy, counter-terrorism etc and cooperation in enhancing interoperability and domain awareness, maritime technologies, blue economy etc.

Significance of EU-India partnership in the Indo-Pacific

• The Indo-Pacific is a crucial region for tackling global challenges such as climate change, biodiversity protection and health resilience.
  • These challenges call for collective action.
• At the Forum, the EU will present the support it can provide to countries of the region, including in terms of green finance, to achieve their ecological transitions in a just manner.
• This is significant for India’s efforts to meet the goals set by the Prime Minister of India at COP26.
• Moreover, in the fields of biodiversity protection and plastic pollution, France and India can act together to spur multilateral action, as exemplified by India’s decision to join the France-initiated international coalition to protect 30 per cent of the land and seas by 2030 (High Ambition Coalition for Nature and People).
• Cooperation between France and India on protected areas and national parks can also be expanded at the Indo-Pacific scale.
• Finally, the ministers will discuss concrete steps to strengthen health sovereignty and promote the “One Health” approach to the pandemic response.
• France will propose the creation of an Indo-Pacific health campus, to be established in India, to bring together India’s pharmaceutical prowess and Europe’s technological capacity for the benefit of the region.

Conclusion

• In a world of growing tensions, the core goal of France’s EU Presidency is to strengthen Europe’s sovereignty and its ability to decide its own fate.
• This endeavor matches India’s fundamental aspiration for strategic autonomy. That is why France believes that the EU can be India’s natural partner to reshape the post-pandemic world and promote a multipolar order.

Source: Indian Express, European Commission,

Mains Question:

Q. “A truly strategic EU-India partnership in the Indo-Pacific can reshape the post-pandemic world and promote a multipolar order.” Discuss.