Keynote Address by Ambassador H.E. Hervé Delphin at India’s World Magazine Event

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Keynote Address by Ambassador H.E. Hervé Delphin at India's World Magazine Event

29.09.2025 Press and information team of the Delegation to INDIA and BHUTAN

At the Launch of Issue 5 of the India's World Magazine, titled "Cultivating Europe: Navigating India-EU Strategic Ties".

The event hosted in partnership with the Heinrich Böll Stiftung, explored the trajectory of India-Europe relations against a backdrop of global disorder, shifting alliances, and a rapidly evolving Indo-Pacific.

Sehr geehrter Herr Doktor J. Luckscheiter [Director of Heinrich Böll Stiftung, India],

Dear Professor H. Jacob [Chief Editor of India's World],

Dear Professor C. Raja Mohan [chair of the Editorial board of India's World],

Excellencies,

Distinguished Guests, ladies and gentlemen,

When President von der Leyen met with Prime Minister Modi on the occasion of the unprecedented visit of the College of the European Commission to Delhi last February, she told him: 'the Planets are aligned'

She was not only referring to a rare phenomenon of alignment of 7 (seven) planets of our solar system that took place on that very day, 28 February 2025. She was using this fitting image to characterize the dynamics of the relationship between the European Union (EU) and India.

So when Professors Mohan and Jacob came to see me last July to tell me about their intention to release an issue of India's World dedicated to Europe and EU-India ties, I could not help but thinking about the same image of 'alignment of planets'.

This release was indeed to coincide with the planned release of a landmark political document on the EU side: the Joint Communication of the Commission and High Representative Kallas to the Council and European Parliament on a new EU-India Strategic Agenda.

And as a feat of sheer coincidence - or fortune some might say- the Joint Communication was published on 17 September, which is, as you all know, the birthday of Prime Minister Modi.

I am certainly more familiar with geopolitics than cosmology or eschatology: But on every account, it would seem as if the EU and India have a 'tryst with destiny'. A common destiny.

This inevitably invites to serious examination: To what extent are we on both sides ready to seize this historical moment and engage in deeper strategic ties? What are the key elements of the strategic equation we must square to transform a latent potential into a lasting reality?

My address today will visit some of these key terms of this strategic equation posed to EU and India - Circumstances, Vision, Will and eventually Capacity - and how they can turn it into a winning formula.

1. Circumstances

The Great geopolitical reshuffling that we have been witnessing in the last decade is still in labour. The US-China relations have been increasingly locked in a "systems-level competition", reverberating across the global chessboard. Nationalist politics are back, driven by identity and communal reflexes, conjuring up historical claims, and turbocharged by a technological race to ensure supremacy. The return to power politics is leading to a retreat of international law and multilateralism.

In this environment of tensions and transformations, India and EU are in different positions, not least geographically. But at the core they face similar challenges: their economic development and their security are under stress; their vision of a rule-based and cooperative global order is undermined.

Against this geopolitical backdrop, President von der Leyen in her keynote address here in Delhi "EU-India, a consequential partnership for the 21^st century" - and I want to thank India's World for having hosted it - said - I quote: "This world is fraught with danger. But I believe this modern version of great power competition is an opportunity for Europe and India to re-imagine their partnership. In many ways, the EU and India are uniquely placed to respond to this challenge together."

This statement reflected a deeper assessment on the EU side that EU and India offer to each other important strategic options: to de-risk the economic turmoil and the security uncertainties; to tap into our complementarities and combine respective strengths and scale to serve each other's interests.

This strategic compulsion have been in the making for some time on the EU side. The proposal to relaunch the Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations and to propose to India the setting up of a Trade and Technology Council (TTC) back in April 2022, were part of this re-assessment to engage with India more decisively.

Seen from Brussels, however it looked like the EU was not really on India's own strategic horizon. [I recall the cover page of Sreeram Chauria's book released a year ago called "Friends: India's closest strategic partners" which featured the flags of India's friend. The EU flag was nowhere to be seen. ]

There were positive signs though: when EAM Jaishankar pronounced his famous phrase in his book The India Way, Strategies for an uncertain world, 2021 «This is time to engage America, manage China, cultivate Europe, reassure Russia, bring Japan into play, draw neighbours in », there was some recognition that Europe needed more attention. But it was a Europe conceived in its multiple political realities, the EU being only one of these. The EU itself was and is still a strange animal to many in India: why should we [Indians] deal with the EU when it is easier to deal with individual member states or smaller groups?

The answer lies in the fact that the EU and its Member States, in the face of epochal changes, were compelled to the dramatic necessity of reviewing and adapting their collective strategic stance. Because of factors such as Brexit, Covid, Russia's waging war on EU borders, a more challenging and unpredictable transatlantic partner, growing imbalances and distortions in the relations with China becoming more and more a systemic rival, the EU had to define its own strategic concept of European sovereignty and strategic autonomy. And EU Member States are increasingly articulating their grand strategy within the frame of the EU.

With the EU moving closer to a strategic posture of strategic autonomy, the assessment of EU and its Member States as a valuable strategic partner has certainly gained weight in Delhi. Not least in the light of India's own strategic conundrum and significant challenges posed by China, Russia and the USA.

In short, circumstances of necessity to de-risk, to hedge by diversifying partnerships and affirmation of greater strategic autonomy certainly provide a strong impetus for deepening our strategic ties.

2. Vision

You need however a frame to project and guide the relationship. The Joint Communication released recently clearly articulates such a political vision for the relationship as seen from Brussels' perspective.

It proposes an ambitious, consistent and concrete for a new EU-India Strategic Agenda with five pillars :

• Prosperity and sustainability: aimed at boosting trade, investment and economic ties with a focus on supply chains and clean transition.

• Technology and Innovation: working together on critical emerging technologies to reduce dependencies and leap-frog by combining our assets and strengths;

• Security and Defence: deepening cooperation on addressing threats and risks in specific areas of mutual concern and cooperating on defence industry;

• Connectivity and Global Issues: partnering as global players on issues of connectivity such as IMEC, on trilateral cooperation or shaping global governance and response to transnational challenges.

• Enablers for our partnership to thrive: with increased mobility and circulation of skills, connecting business communities as well as think tanks, academia and a more strategic steer of the partnership.

Each of these pillars contains numerous proposals and initiatives for joint action that could deliver tangible results. Such as:

• innovation hubs to mobilise start-ups and facilitate their market uptake ;

• Blue Valleys as dedicated 'conducive' platforms for private sector engagement in selected value chains ;

• a TTC 0.2 zooming in on critical supply chain like semi-conductors; active pharma ingredients; clean tech and bio tech ;

• a gateway office to facilitate mobility of skilled workers in ICT sector;

• a Security & Defence Partnership as enabler for defence industrial cooperation.

At the core, the Joint communication proposes nothing more than greater connection and integration of our ecosystems. It is not a short term hedging. It is a long term investment.

This is EU's concrete and ambitious offer.

3. Will

We all know that ultimately the political will must be mustered to turn aspirations in realisations.

The reference to India as a priority in the Political guidelines for the New Commission presented in July 2024 by President von der Leyen, was an important signal that only a few picked up.

The visit to Delhi of the President with the College of Commissioners last February or the recent visit of the Ambassadors of the EU Political & Security Committee earlier in September, were further clear indications that the EU literally 'walks its talk'. They are a powerful political message of confidence and readiness from the EU side to engage.

Leaders on both sides are fully behind. The President of the European Council António Costa, President Ursula von der Leyen the Member States, and Prime Minister Modi, who referred to EU and India as "natural strategic partners".

This is helped by growing maturity in the discussions on strategic issues as exemplified in the holding of the first Strategic Dialogue at the level of HRVP Kallas and EAM Jaishankar last June.

Our partnership can deliver mutual benefits but also further respective global aspirations to shape the global agenda.

• EU and India together represent close to 25% of world GDP, 25% of world population.

• The EU is India's biggest trading partner in goods;

• we both stand as cooperative global actors committed to rules-based approaches and rules-based order ;

• We have largely converging interests in the Indo-Pacific region;

• we both seek to address global challenges and promote public goods -whether Climate action, Sustainable development and financing for development, to AI governance, Space governance ;

• we both reject wars of aggression and terrorism; or economic coercion.

• As large democracies, we attach importance to the respect and promotion of human values.

• Both sides see each other as poles of stability and 'ballast' in a multipolar world.

We also have to be clear-eyed about those issues on which we are not aligned.

Let's be clear: there is a Russia question - specifically linked to its war of aggression against Ukraine and its hostile attitude towards as seen in past weeks and days and the violation of European air space by Russian drones. The participation of an Indian military contingent in the Russia-Belarus military exercise Zapad-2025 or the question of sanctions and of Russian oil have been much in discussion in European capitals lately. But also here in Delhi on the occasion of the PSC's visit.

Ending the war in Ukraine with Russia engaging genuinely in a cease-fire and peace talks is certainly what everybody wants. But it seems that President Putin has other views.

India has pronounced itself for peace. Russia is a strategic partner for India. And India wants to deepen its ties with the EU. This will requires further consideration in Delhi on how to square those terms.

Let me quote an article in an Indian newspaper I read recently, as it gives some sensible pointers: "It is time, though, for India to stop seeing Europe through the eyes of Russia, as it has since Independence. While Delhi must maintain a productive relationship with Moscow, it also needs to balance its ties with Brussels and Moscow. The rapidly rising stakes in India's relationship with the European Union require such a recalibration".

When it comes to questions of democracy and human rights, Europe and India are what they are because of their belief in democracy, human rights, individual dignity and equality, putting people at the centre. We both enjoy rich cultures, the multifaceted civilisational expression of our diversity : Both unique and diverse ; and both united in our own diversity. These shared values are admittedly under threat. We should cultivate them, both for our own sake and for our common good. Those shared values are a foundational element of our partnership. They give it deep meaning about what we stand for.

Deepening our strategic ties will therefore demand sensitivity and respect to navigate our differences, the acceptance of not being fully aligned, and preserving a space for honest discussion.

4. Capacity to Act

The final point I want to make is about the agency of our systems to drive this partnership forward. We represent two big bureaucracies, with different cultures and approaches. In order to keep the direction and the momentum, you need agency to deliver and focus on concrete targets.

The current joint roadmap 2020-2025, represent a list of 118 actions. Both sides agree that the completion rate stands at 80+%. But probably they were too many actions, not necessarily all formulated in terms of real deliverables.

Now the strategic case is clear. We must deliver:

• Deliver on the FTA by end of year. The 13^th round earlier in September was a bit of a missed opportunity to make some breakthrough. The EU was and is still ready to conclude on a meaningful package. We look forward to India engaging in earnest and moving, like the EU has shown readiness to do, towards a mutually beneficial deal.

• Deliver on a new EU-India Strategic Roadmap to be negotiated between both sides with a view to have it endorsed at the next EU-India Summit early 2026 here in Delhi-turning words into action, and ambition into reality.

To act more decisively a stronger institutional governance of the relationship is also needed. The Joint Communication proposes mechanisms of follow-up of implementation and accountability and more frequent engagement of the political level. It also pleads for a whole-of system mobilisation of stakeholders to develop and sustain the bilateral relationship.

• People-to-People through exchange programmes in Education, Research, Sciences and mobility of workers,

• Business-to-Business: Business will play a key role in driving our partnership forward. Hence the proposal to have an EU-India Business Forum (of CEOs).

• Think tanks and experts: will play an important role in the circulation of ideas, in distilling analyses that can inform policy deliberations. We need to increase our mutual literacy on each other. There is still a dearth of Indian experts in Brussels and I would say the same here in Delhi. Creating more familiarity is critical to update knowledge and develop mutual understanding : like EU stance on China, which is still not fully appraised in India; or India's engagement with the Global South, and mini-laterals such as BRICS or the SCO.

I therefore salute India's World initiative with this issue dedicated to Europe and EU-India. I also thank all Indian Experts and think tankers - some of whom are in this hall today - who study EU-India relations and help shed light on the opportunities, strengths, risks and limits.

In conclusion,

The degree of strategic convergence between the EU and India has never been greater, driven by:

• Convergence of our geopolitical, economic and security interests.

• Complementarity of our respective needs and assets

• Scale of what we can offer to each other.

• Will of our leaders.

The trust and thrust in our relationship can take it to a new strategic level, a truly transformative partnership pact. This is Brussels' call to Delhi.

Thank you for your attention.