At a time when the international system is marked by flux, ambiguity and shifting alignments—when yesterday’s partners appear transactional and today’s adversaries selectively cooperative—the coming together of India and the European Union carries particular significance. The convergence of two mature political systems, each accustomed to strategic restraint and long-term calculation, is not incidental.
That the EU leadership has been invited as a collective to India’s Republic Day—an invitation New Delhi extends with deliberate care—signals a mutual recognition that stability, reliability and strategic autonomy are emerging as valued currencies in an uncertain world. The leaders’ presence should be read less as ceremonial symbolism and more as a reflection of converging strategic compulsions. This convergence is not driven by ideological alignment or historical intimacy, but by necessity—economic, geopolitical and systemic—on both sides.
India today operates in a far more fragmented global environment than even a decade ago. Its strategic engagements across regions remain active, but increasingly constrained by competing priorities and structural limits. Russia continues to be significant for India, not as an ideological partner, but as a critical defence supplier and a long-standing balancer in the China equation. Even as India diversifies its defence procurement, the depth and legacy of this relationship cannot be wished away without incurring strategic risk.
West Asia, meanwhile, presents a different complexity. India has successfully built parallel relationships with competing regional actors—Israel, Iran, Saudi Arabia, the UAE and Qatar. This balancing act has served Indian interests well, but it also limits the scope for deeper strategic alignment with any single regional bloc. West Asia is an arena of engagement, not anchorage, and it’s changing at a dynamic speed. The challenge thrown up by the issue regarding the Gaza Board of Peace exemplifies the type of complex choices India faces.
In the Indo-Pacific, the picture is subtly changing. While the region remains central to India’s maritime and economic interests, the US itself appears to be recalibrating its threat perception, particularly with regard to China. Strategic signalling has softened, emphasis has shifted toward risk management rather than confrontation, and the urgency that once amplified India’s strategic value in this theatre has somewhat diluted. India remains important—but less indispensable than before.
It is against this backdrop that Europe acquires renewed relevance.
For India, the EU represents a rare strategic space where cooperation is possible without intense competition or coercive alignment. The EU is not seeking military alliances in Asia, nor is it attempting to draw India into zero-sum geopolitical contests. Its interests lie primarily in economic security, technological resilience, supply chain diversification, climate transitions and rule-based stability—all areas where India’s rise complements European needs.
From Europe’s perspective, the attraction is equally pragmatic. The EU today faces a prolonged security crisis in its eastern neighbourhood, uncertainty about the long-term reliability of American security guarantees, and an uncomfortable dependence on China across critical economic sectors. India offers Europe scale, market depth, skilled manpower, democratic legitimacy and strategic autonomy—without the unpredictability that increasingly characterises other major powers.
This makes India-EU convergence fundamentally different from India’s engagements elsewhere. It is non-adversarial, non-hierarchical and structurally compatible. That said, the relationship cannot be understood purely through the EU as a monolithic entity. Individual European countries—France, Germany, Italy, Spain and the Netherlands among them—enjoy deep, mature and often highly productive bilateral relationships with India. In defence, energy, technology, education and innovation, these ties have advanced far more rapidly than India’s engagement with EU institutions.
This creates a paradox. The cumulative weight of India’s bilateral relationships with European states is often heavier than its engagement with the EU as a single institutionalised system. These national relationships bring speed, flexibility and political trust—qualities that Brussels-led mechanisms may sometimes lack. Any serious India-EU strategic partnership must therefore acknowledge that the whole does not automatically exceed the sum of its parts.
The challenge—and opportunity—for India lies in leveraging strong bilateral ties to shape a coherent engagement with the EU without allowing institutional inertia or normative overreach to dilute outcomes. Europe’s regulatory instincts on trade, climate, data and labour will continue to create friction with India’s developmental imperatives. These differences are structural and should not be disguised. Strategic partnership does not require uniformity of worldview; a broad convergence can allow the process to progress. A broad understanding of mutual recognition of constraints and complementarities remains very helpful.
The EU’s stance on Gaza closely mirrors India’s own cautious approach. Both support humanitarian stabilisation and reconstruction, yet remain wary of ad hoc mechanisms that risk diluting multilateral legitimacy or expanding mandates beyond their original intent. In distancing themselves from the proposed Peace Board while backing broader relief efforts, India and the EU demonstrate a shared instinct: commitment to outcomes without compromising institutional credibility.
Economically, convergence is already visible. Europe seeks trusted manufacturing partners, resilient supply chains, and alternatives to excessive China dependence. India seeks technology, investment, and market access to sustain growth and industrial transformation. Negotiations on the Trade and Investment Agreement, though complex, must be viewed as a strategic economic exercise rather than just a narrow commercial bargain.
Politically, both sides share an interest in preserving strategic autonomy in an increasingly polarised world. Neither India nor the EU is comfortable with rigid blocs or binary choices. This shared discomfort may yet prove to be the strongest foundation for the partnership.
The Republic Day visit, therefore, is best understood not as a culmination, but as a way point. It signals Europe’s recognition of emerging India as a stabilising global actor, and India’s willingness to engage Europe as a strategic entity—while retaining the primacy of bilateral strengths. The convergence stands out precisely because it offers cooperation without compulsion. That, in today’s strategic environment, is no small advantage.
Lt Gen Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) | Former Commander, Srinagar-based 15 Corps; Chancellor, Central University of Kashmir
(Views are personal)
(atahasnain@gmail.com)