 "India, EU sign defence, security partnership to boost strategic ties")
India and the European Union (EU) on Tuesday signed an agreement to establish a Security and Defence Strategic Partnership.
Following the signing of the security and defence agreement, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said it would serve as a foundation to give a new shape to collaboration between India and the EU in the domains of counter-terrorism and strengthen maritime and cyber-security relations.
India’s defence companies will look for more opportunism for coproduction and co-development under the agreement, said Modi.
With the defence and strategic agreement, the India-EU relationship is now set to go beyond trade and commerce.
On her part, EU foreign minister Kaja Kallas described the defence and security partnership as a “milestone”.
“There is so much more we can work together on in the multilateral fora as well as bilaterally to further develop defence cooperation. I really look forward to our discussions today and further cooperation in the future,” Kallas further said.
Security and defence partnerships, the kind that the EU has now set up with India, forms a key pillar of the EU’s efforts to promote peace and security both in Europe and globally, serving as a new framework to deepen bilateral relations with non-EU countries in a mutually beneficial manner, according to the EU.
Under the defence partnership set to be announced, European powers are looking to establish manufacturing hubs in India in a win‑win arrangement, Firstpost’s Madhur Sharma reported earlier in the day.
Quick Reads
View AllAs Russian hybrid warfare has threatened European defence manufacturing units, establishing a second line of production in India would not only secure supplies for Europe at a distant location where Russian sabotage would be unlikely, but also provide India with investment and the technical know‑how of sophisticated arms manufacturing — making it a mutually beneficial arrangement.
A person familiar with the thinking behind the partnership told Firstpost that such an arrangement would support India’s Make in India initiative and its wider indigenisation efforts in the defence sector.
The defence and security agreement was reached during the India-EU Summit that also witnessed the two sides announcing a trade deal that has been dubbed as the ‘mother of all deals’ by both the sides. India and the EU also signed agreements related to mobility, disaster risk management, and green hydrogen.
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