May 7, 2021
The leaders of the European Union are meeting in person for the first time this year at a summit in Porto, Portugal, on May 7 and 8. On the second day, they’ll be joined (virtually) by a special guest: Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister.
You might be wondering what Modi is doing there and how he has the time. Conservative estimates show that more than 400,000 people are testing positive for Covid-19 in India every day, the largest single contribution to global infections in the world. ICUs are out of beds, oxygen tanks are rarer than oxygen scams, and rickshaws are being converted into ambulances. For Modi, who has been accused of fueling this humanitarian crisis by encouraging people to gather in large groups, the optics of showing up, even virtually, for a far-away summit, are especially tricky.
In the News
April 27, 2021
Garima Mohan, fellow in GMF’s Asia Program, testified in front of the U.K. House of Lords International Relations and Defence Committee on April 21, 2021, addressing India and the wider Indo-Pacific perspectives on China’s military and trade approach in the Indo-Pacific, as well as the United Kingdom’s role in the region.
Countries in the region are perceiving China’s economic and military power with increasing concern, including its challenging status quo in the South China Sea and in the Himalayas, its military inroads in Southeast Asia, and its expanding footprint in the Indian Ocean. While many countries see Chinese economic investments as an opportunity, there are also concerns regarding dual use investments, debt traps reducing the ability of smaller countries to maneuver against increase political influence, and finally economic coercion as noticed most recently in the case of Australia. The countries in the Indo-Pacific region have their
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India’s relations with Europe tend to focus on the Old Continent’s western side – and for good reasons. France has emerged as a significant supplier of military equipment, Germany is India’s biggest trading partner within the EU, and the U.K. is a hub for Indian companies. And yet there is certainly room for New Delhi’s relations with other European states to grow, even though their capabilities are much more limited.
For instance, as most of Central Eastern Europe is a part of the EU, the region offers foreign companies access to the European Union’s markets but with lower operation costs than further west. The Apollo Tyres factory in Hungary is a rare case of a major Indian firm investing in the region with probably those considerations in mind.
In the News
December 17, 2020
Dr. Garima Mohan and Dr. Frederic Grare joined Bridging the Oceans, hosted by Veerle Nouwens, to explore the growing momentum in Europe of individual states releasing strategies and foreign policy guidelines on the Indo-Pacific region. In particular focus are Germany and France, whose strategies while broadly aligned also offer some divergences.
They explore how these policies might be implemented in the future and what role the European Union may play given the calls by Paris, Berlin and others for the EU to release an Indo-Pacific Strategy of its own.
Rusi