NEW DELHI: President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen is reaching India on Sunday morning to attend the seventh edition of the Raisina Dialogue (April 25th to 27th). She has been invited as the chief guest. The inaugural address will be given by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
"Let us take the European Union-India partnership forward. This would mean negotiating ambitious trade and investment agreements, connecting the world with Global gateway, driving the digital revolution, fighting climate change and achieving a just energy transistion," Ursula said in a tweet, just before she took off for Delhi today.
India and EU are celebrating six decades of relations.
"I am off to Delhi as we celebrated 60 years of EU India relations, during which we built a solid friendship. And a cooperation that we now both want to take to the next level. I am looking forward to my discussions with Narendra Modi," she added.
The main agenda is to enhance India-EU strategic partnership along with cooperation in the Indo-Pacific, defence and security, connectivity, energy and biodiversity.
This is Von der Leyen’s first visit to India in an official capacity.
The long-awaited talks related to the India-EU Free Trade Agreement are expected. The preliminary talks took place last month.
The EU is India’s largest trading partner, accounting for € 80 billion worth of trade in goods in 2019 or 11.1 per cent of total Indian trade, on par with the US and ahead of China (10.7 per cent). The EU is the second-largest destination for Indian exports (over 14 per cent of the total) after the US.