Analyst: ‘EU looking toward a more functional relationship with India’

India and the EU have changed their perspective on mutual relations, abandoning a more ideological approach in favour of pragmatically tackling “the nitty-gritty”, a prominent analyst and research fellow at the Brussels School of Governance told EURACTIV in an interview.

Asked about the current state of EU-India relations in the context of Russia’s aggression against Ukraine, Gauri Khandekar said the EU had realised that India’s position had become “larger on the world stage”.

“Previously, the EU and India didn’t see each other as strategic partners, even if they say they were. Now there is a change in the European perspective, as well as in India’s”, she said.

According to her, the EU no longer asks India to align with its foreign policy as it does with other countries.  And in her words, the Indian position has become more articulate.

As an example, she quoted Indian Foreign Minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar’s comment that “Europe has to grow out of the mindset that Europe’s problems are the world’s problems. But the world’s problems are not Europe’s problem. China-India happened way before Ukraine”, alluding to Europe’s double standards.

Khandekar said the number of meetings between India and the EU has increased and there was more effort in defining a better partnership, which was previously mainly political, with Brussels asking New Delhi to be the West’s ally, she said.

“That has been quashed. Now the EU is looking toward meeting India’s priorities, to a more functional relationship”, she said.

The recent EU-India Trade and Technology Council focused on trade and technology, which Khandekar said was the right way to go.

“The emphasis is more on the nitty-gritty, on digital cooperation, moving things forward on decarbonisation. This happens against the shift in Europe toward diversification or de-risking vis-à-vis China, and the tendency is propelling the development of relations with India, a country much in the same position as China to be a manufacturing hub”.

Western hypocrisy

Regarding the much-reported increase in India’s imports of Russian oil, Khandekar said the West should praise India for stabilising global energy prices rather than criticise New Delhi.

India began to boost oil imports from Russia in April 2022 after Russia invaded Ukraine. Through March 2023, India imported a daily average of 1.02 million barrels of Russian crude, an elevenfold increase from the previous year and 20% of the country’s overall oil imports.

While oil prices surged worldwide, imports of relatively cheap Russian oil helped India reap the benefits of widening margins between importing crude oil and exporting petroleum products.

This is how India refined a large portion of imported Russian oil into products to be sold to countries that have joined the sanctions in a process some pundits half-jokingly called “oil laundering.”

“India’s exports of processed petroleum to Europe have helped stabilise global prices, feared to explode to $200 per barrel, but didn’t go beyond 120 and are now at $70”, the analyst said.

“India became the largest exporter [of refined Russian oil] to the Netherlands”, Khandekar said, calling the EU’s attempts to sanction such trade “hypocritical”. Moreover, she said, the US did not ban Russian oil, it just capped it, imposing a maximum price of $60 per barrel, while India imports it at $80.

Seizing opportunities

Khandekar argued that for many years Russia had been a close partner for India, and the country “seized an opportunity” to buy more Russian oil at lower prices, far away from the concept of breaching the sanctions.

She said Russia remains India’s leading arms supplier, but the tendency in the last five years has been to decrease the Russian share, from 62% of the total arms imports to 45%, while the share of French-made arms increased.

“[Narendra] Modi is in the US now and there are discussions about the fighter jets,” she said of the Indian prime minister’s visit to Washington.

Indeed, the Indian press reported GE Aerospace’s announcement that it had signed an agreement with state-owned Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) to produce fighter jet engines for the Indian Air Force.

“The US is trying to court India. India is trying to diversify from Russian armaments. What India is doing is taking advantage of the opportunities. In a sense, it’s a win-win for India”, she said.

Asked about the criticism toward Modi’s domestic policies, particularly overwhelming Hindu nationalism and illiberalism, Khandekar said there was indeed such criticism in the West, but it went hand in hand with “little understanding of what is going on in India”.

Thanks to the huge investments in infrastructure, she said, Modi was seen domestically as a “model prime minister” capable of modernising the economy.

In terms of financial inclusion of the poor, she said millions of people got bank accounts. Also, she said Modi had spearheaded an ambitious climate policy, including a 2070 net zero goal and a 45% reduction in emissions intensity by 2030.

She said Modi was praised domestically for taking control of the autonomous territories of Jammu and Kashmir, which had been roiled by militant violence since 1989.

Asked if India had the potential to help negotiate a peace agreement to end the Russian aggression in Ukraine, Khandakar was rather dismissive.

“India has its issues with China, with Pakistan. But nobody comes to India’s help in that sense”, she said, mirroring the comments of India’s prime minister.

[Edited by Alice Taylor]