The Significance of EU-India Partnership in the Indo-Pacific : Daily Current Affairs

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.

Indo-Pacific Region

  • Indo-Pacific is the maritime space stretching from East Africa and West Asia’s littoral countries, across the Indian Ocean and the western Pacific Ocean to East Asia’s littoral countries.
  • It is a strategic-cum-economic conception with special focus on sea lanes of communication.
  • The region is central to world economy and peace, and nine countries are key players: the US, China, Japan, India, Germany, the UK, Russia, Australia and France.
  • The geopolitics and geo-economics of the Indo-Pacific will be largely shaped by the interplay of relations among these nations.

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.