Modi works on India’s Europe pivot

India continues to pivot towards Europe, as prime minister, Narendra Modi embarks on his second visit to Europe within a month (he will go again in July, for the G-20 summit). Modi will take off for Portugal on Saturday and will be in the Netherlands for a working visit on June 27, fresh out of a summit with Donald Trump in Washington.
In a departure statement, PM Modi said “I will have an official meeting with the Dutch Prime Minister H.E.Mr. Mark Rutte. I will also call on King Willem-Alexander of the Netherlands and meet Queen Maxima.
I look forward to meeting Prime Minister Rutte and reviewing our bilateral relations. I would be exchanging views with PM Rutte on important global issues including counter-terrorism and climate change.”
Netherlands as the third largest source of FDI in India gets extra attention. Along with his meetings with the leadership, India and Netherlands will sign two agreements on water and cultural relations, said the Netherlands ambassador, Alphonsus Stoelinga, in a briefing on Friday. Netherlands will be India’s primary partner on the rejuvenation of the Ganga. “We will help with technologies, plan the future of the river etc, in the same way that we helped with the clean-up of the Rhine,” Stoelinga said. The water agreement, he said, is important because after three years, the Ganga project has crystallised and there is greater clarity on what needs to be done.
Netherlands, Stoelinga said, was also going to share agriculture know-how with India that would help enhance productivity. “Dutch technology and know-how can meet Indian frugal innovation and ability to scale up technologies for the market,” he said.
In a new development, Modi will interact with a group of financial companies in Netherlands to work out a new initiative — hitherto, Stoelinga said Dutch entities had invested only in private infrastructure. “We are going to mobilise public and private capital for India’s public infrastructure and agriculture,” he said. This would be part of the discussions Modi is expected to have with about 12 CEOs.
India will be hosting the global conference on cybersecurity in November this year, where Netherlands will co-chair with India the global forum on cyber expertise.
“Modi is coming to Europe at the right time,” the envoy said. “Europe is doing better, we are in control of our financial troubles, and more confident. This is a good time for Europe and India together.” India, he said, could become a better partner for the EU, particularly after Brexit.
Unlike China, he said, India-EU trade was fairly evenly balanced. But there is a growing pitch for India and EU to finalise the FTA, negotiations for which are expected to restart in July.