NEW DELHI: When Narendra Modi touches base with the new German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, it’s against the backdrop of the Ukraine war that is seen to have triggered Berlin’s decision in late March, to “rearm” with plans to spend an impressive 100 billion Euros. But not many may recall that two months earlier, the same Scholz government had offered to send 5000 helmets to Ukraine rather than any military hardware. This could even have been a climbdown from the earlier offer of a field hospital for Ukraine.
“The point to note is that there is a mindset here,” said a senior government official “and while it’s good that Modi is meeting Scholz so early in his tenure, German squeamishness about many issues including defence and strategic policy may be an obstacle going forward.”
But if there’s anything the Ukraine crisis has demonstrated, it’s Germany’s capacity to change. Likewise Europe. There is a view that for a long time India tended to view Europe through the Russian lens, seeing it as an appendage of the U.S. and its foreign and security policies. The bloc’s pronouncements on human rights were seen as sanctimonious, its lectures on democracy and governance as interference in the affairs of other countries.
While some of those views have not entirely changed, both sides have been moving forward, unveiling a joint roadmap two years ago on climate change, security, fair trade, human rights and innovation. They have been working on a free trade area for some years with those negotiations receiving a fillip recently.
At last week’s high profile Raisina Dialogue, there was an announcement on an India-EU Trade and Technology Council. It was lost in the noisy and emotional drumbeat on Ukraine by European leaders present but that noise underscored another point: with Russia and China now firmly on one side, and the U.S. seen as a distant and uncertain partner (witness its abrupt departure from Afghanistan last year handing the country to the Taliban), Europe has acquired a new sheen with Germany out there in front.
It is this new sheen that Narendra Modi will seek to work on in Berlin, and there are opportunities to be availed of. Germany unveiled an Indo-Pacific policy two years ago and as president of the EU then, elevated ties with ASEAN to the level of a strategic partnership. This matches with India’s view of the centrality of ASEAN to the Indo-Pacific.
Last week, Scholz was in Tokyo for talks with his counterpart Fumio Kishida and they drew a direct link between the Ukraine crisis and its impact in Asia. With Australia too, Germany now has a strategic partnership. To demonstrate seriousness of intent and show the flag, Germany sailed a frigate through the region.
Incidentally, Japan and Australia are India’s Quad partners and Tokyo will host a summit of the group’s heads of state later this month.
Dr Tobias Linder, Germany’s junior foreign affairs minister, was quoted as saying that “We want to have cooperation in technology, education, security and climate change with India. No major problem can be solved without India, an important partner.”
The visit to Copenhagen underscores India’s growing interest in the Nordic region, seen as a repository of key technologies, from artificial intelligence to clean energy and green tech. Modi had a virtual summit with Danish Prime Minister Mette Fredericksen in September 2020 when the Strategic Green Partnership was launched. This time he will summit with the heads of state of the Nordic Five (Denmark, Sweden, Norway, Finland, Iceland), the only country apart from the U.S. to have such an arrangement.
Paris will be a stopover on Modi’s return leg, giving him enough time to personally congratulate President Emmanuel Macron on being re-elected and review the broader relationship. France is India’s largest military partner after Russia, having delivered 36 Rafale fighter aircraft and transferred technology to enable India to build six Scorpene submarines. France is also a robust partner in the Indo-Pacific given its vast Indian Ocean territories.
Mission Europe takes off from Modi’s previous visits to the continent, interrupted by the pandemic. It will seek to build on recent gains in the economic and technology sphere during which, he will, of course, have to go some more miles on explaining India’s Ukraine stance. But that’s politics.
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