Building a sustainable EU-India partnership

After nearly a decade, the ‘Strategic Partnership’ between the European Union (EU) and India launched in 2004 still has to live up to its name. The EU and India acknowledge each other as important global actors, but not as real strategic partners.

Long drawn negotiations over a free trade agreement (FTA) soak up most of the attention and risk pegging the entire relationship to their success or failure. The volume of untapped overall potential appears to be expanding. It is time to move towards a new EU-India partnership on urbanisation, infrastructure, development and sustainable growth.