NEW DELHI: India and the European Union on Tuesday signed the landmark Security and Defence Partnership (SDP) on the sidelines of the 16th India-EU Summit in New Delhi.
While India and the EU have shared a strategic partnership since 2004, defence cooperation has until now been conducted largely through dialogue mechanisms and occasional joint activities, rather than formal, binding arrangements. European Council President António Costa described the SDP as “the first overarching defence and security framework between India and the European Union.” India now joins Japan and South Korea as the only Asian partners to have such an agreement.
The government said in a statement on Tuesday that Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, during his meeting with European Commission Vice President Kaja Kallas, said that “India’s defence industry can play a meaningful role in the EU’s ‘ReArm initiative’, especially when the EU is seeking to rapidly diversify suppliers and de-risk dependencies.”
The partnership comes as the EU seeks to rapidly strengthen defence production and industrial capacity under its ‘ReArm initiative’, a comprehensive programme launched earlier this year to mobilise up to 800 billion Euros in defence spending. The plan, which includes a 150 billion Euros joint procurement instrument, aims to close capability gaps exposed by the Ukraine war and reduce Europe’s dependence on external suppliers, amid growing uncertainty over sustained U.S. security commitments.
Singh added that the framework would integrate supply chains and help build “trusted defence ecosystems,” in line with India’s 'Aatmanirbhar' Bharat vision. An annual EU-India Security and Defence Dialogue will oversee the implementation of the partnership.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa hailed the deal as expanding cooperation “in areas such as maritime security, counterterrorism, and cyber-defence.” The joint summit statement noted that the SDP will deepen ties across maritime security, defence industry and technology, cyber and hybrid threats, space and counter-terrorism, among other domains.
Another concrete outcome of the agreement is enhanced maritime coordination. India accepted the EU’s proposal to station a liaison officer at the Indian Navy’s Information Fusion Centre-Indian Ocean Region (IFC-IOR) in Gurugram, a move intended to strengthen joint counter-piracy patrols and threat assessment in the Indian Ocean.
India’s defence engagement with Europe spans major platforms and industrial collaborations. These include French Rafale fighter jets from Dassault Aviation, Scorpène-class diesel-electric submarines built in India with French technology under Project 75 and Airbus C‑295 military transport aircraft, now being assembled domestically by Tata Advanced Systems. Partnerships with companies such as Safran and MBDA further integrate Indian industry into European defence supply chains through technology transfers and joint production.
In parallel, Indian private defence firms are supplying Europe with ammunition, electronics, naval repair services and emerging unmanned systems, areas where European countries face shortages amid accelerated rearmament plans, particularly in the wake of the Ukraine war.