PM Narendra Modi to hardsell pet projects like Make In India at European Union summit

NEW DELHI: In his first summit with the European Union in Brussels on March 30, Prime Minister Narendra Modi will hard sell his government's flagship projects — Smart Cities, Skill India, Digital India, Startup India, Make In India, cleaning of Ganges and renewable energy sectors — eyeing partnership with the 28-nation-bloc for them.

At the 13th edition of the Indo-EU summit, the objective of both sides is to establish rapport with the EU leadership and to reassure commitment to strategic partnership after attempts to hold the meet last year were put on hold following intransigence of certain EU officials on the Italian marine case as well as scheduling issues from both sides.

The key goal of the summit is to advance Delhi’s partnership with EU in priority areas for India’s growth and development, a senior government source told ET.

"The summit also gives us a platform to supplement our bilateral relationships with key EU countries," noted a person familiar with the developments. The last or the 12th India-EU annual summit was held in New Delhi in 2012.


Besides firming up India-EU counter-terror partnership, the Brussels Summit is expected to witness EU’s expression of interest for PM’s flagship projects, sources informed. Individual EU member countries have already initiated partnership in some and have expressed interest in the project to clean Ganges on the lines of river Rhine and Danube. Besides visits by French and German leaders, prime ministers of Sweden, Finland and Netherlands have visited India since May 2014. Modi on his part made two visits to France besides one to Germany and UK.

In this trip, the PM will also be involved in an official trip to Belgium after the EU summit on April 30 before reaching Washington next day for the Nuclear Security Summit. On his way back, Modi will visit Saudi Arabia on April 2-3 EU is India’s biggest trade partner ($126 billion) as a block and also India’s largest export destination ($65 Bn). It is the largest source of FDI in India ($69 Bn). EU is India’s leading partner in Science & Technology, sources pointed out.

The Summit hopes to give much needed political push to the proposed bilateral Free Trade Area agreement. The last review meeting between the chief negotiators for FTA was held here in January.

At the summit, the PM will meet Donald Tusk, the president of EU & former PM of Poland and Jean-Claude Juncker, president of European Commission & former PM of Luxembourg.

He had first met these two leaders on the sidelines of the G-20 summit in Turkey last November which paved way for political dialogue between the two sides after a lull.

The Indo-EU relationship was upgraded to a strategic partnership in the 5th edition of the bilateral summit in 2004. In Brussels Modi will attend diaspora meet in the evening of March 30 where a crowd of 10,000 is expected. Indian diaspora in Belgium is around 20,000. Indians now control almost three-quarters of Antwerp’s diamond industry.