NEW DELHI, 8 September 2005 — India and the 25-nation European Union (EU) yesterday launched an action plan to deepen their strategic partnership and jointly combat terrorism.
“We have had a good and extremely productive discussion at the 6th India-EU summit today. The most important outcome has been the adoption of a joint action plan which provides the necessary framework for our fast evolving multi-faceted relations,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said at a press conference attended also by British Prime Minister Tony Blair at the Hyderabad House here.
Manmohan and visiting British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who holds the rotating presidency of the EU, unveiled the action plan to strengthen trade and security ties between Europe and the emerging economic power.
“I have no doubt this does mark a change, a significant change and turning point in relations between the EU and India,” Blair told a joint news conference.
“It sets a framework for further action and discussion across a whole range of issues from trade and security through to education and science and technology,” he said.
The two sides will set up joint panels to boost trade and investment and counter global warming.
The two sides signed a crucial framework agreement on India’s participation in the Galileo satellite navigation system as was agreed upon at the Hague summit last year.
The Galileo satellite positioning and navigation services system project is a joint initiative of the EU and the European Space Agency and is being positioned as a rival to the US Global Positioning System.
Conceptualized in 1999, the Galileo program is likely to cost 3.4 billion euros when itbecomes operational in 2008. China and Israel have already signed for the project.
Blair also backed India’s quest for a permanent UN Security Council seat but said the EU was split.
Manmohan said he remained hopeful India could win a permanent seat on an expanded UN Security Council. Brazil, Germany and Japan are also seeking a place. Blair said Britain supported India’s candidature, but the EU had no common position.
European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso said he did not want the issue to overshadow next week’s General Assembly meeting in New York, at the expense of issues like combating poverty.
Blair will hold bilateral talks with Manmohan today.
Under the action plan, top EU and Indian officials will hold senior-level talks on disarmament and non-proliferation of weapons of mass destruction, on terrorism and its financing and on organized crime, officials said.
“We have agreed that there is no place for terrorism in the civilized world, and that we would work together towards fighting it,” Manmohan said.
The two sides will set up joint panels to boost trade and investment and counter global warming.
But strains over trade resurfaced at a business summit as India pressed for greater access to EU markets for its products.
Trade Minister Kamal Nath said the EU’s anti-dumping actions against Indian products were a major concern for New Delhi, which felt they were neither rational nor fair.
“A disproportionately large number of products in textiles, electronics, chemicals, pharmaceuticals, herbal remedies and steel sectors face such actions,” Nath said.
“Indian trade and industry circles feel that while India has liberalized and markets have been opened up offering new vistas to global trade and industry, reciprocal benefits have not flowed from the developed world to us.”
India says that huge subsidies to farmers in Europe and the United States render Indian farm produce uncompetitive and act as a barrier to increase trade. Its farm products also face market access problems because of stringent sanitary norms.
A group of 20 developing nations share New Delhi’s position and their stand has blocked progress at the Doha round of trade talks on a global pact to lower trade barriers and boost economies in poorer countries.
Blair, who spent Monday and Tuesday in China, said all countries recognized “the changes that respectively we’ve got to make to ensure” expanded trade ties with India. — Additional input from Reuters.
