00:00This is Apropos. EU leaders joined India's Republic Day Parade as guests of honour earlier as Brussels and New Delhi concluded talks on a long-awaited free trade agreement.
00:13Officials have been working on the deal on and off for nearly two decades, but Donald Trump's trade tariffs last year prompted both sides to fast-track negotiations.
00:23Monty Francis has the details.
00:24India celebrated its annual Republic Day on Monday with a show of military might, a flyover by the Indian Air Force, and a celebration of culture to mark the anniversary of the country's post-colonial constitution.
00:41Taking part in the festivities, Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who rolled out the red carpet for his guests of honour, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, the President of the European Council.
00:54The fanfare comes ahead of Tuesday's summit at which India and the EU are expected to announce a landmark free trade deal and security partnership.
01:05India is a country of 1.4 billion people on track to become the world's fourth-largest economy this year.
01:12Experts say the pact would be a major win for Brussels and New Delhi, as both seek to open up new markets to counter U.S. tariffs and Chinese export controls.
01:22The details have not yet been announced, but it's expected that India will slash tariffs on European cars to 40 percent, down from 110 percent, the biggest opening yet for European automakers.
01:35New Delhi is also expected to open its market further to European wine.
01:40The trade deal is also expected to expand India's market in Europe for electronics, textiles and chemicals.
01:47For its part, India continues to depend on Russian oil, but that has decreased under tariff threats from the U.S.
01:54and the EU pact is expected to push India further from dependence on Moscow.
01:59Well, for more, we're joined now by Christophe Jafferleau, author, political scientist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
02:10Thanks so much, Christophe, for being with us on the programme.
02:13Both sides describing this moment as historic.
02:17It's taken nearly two decades to get here.
02:19Just why has it taken so long?
02:21What have been the main sticking points, do you believe?
02:23Well, there were many bonds of contention.
02:28Yes, it started, this negotiation started in 2007.
02:34Both sides decided to stop in 2013.
02:38And they have restarted these negotiations only three, four years ago when they decided to, yeah, go ahead and complete it.
02:49Clearly, Donald Trump has accelerated these negotiations, but we don't know yet whether this is really historical.
03:03We don't know yet how deep this deal will be.
03:07There are rumours saying that, well, agriculture will not be part of it.
03:14That will be one of the limitations.
03:16And, you know, at the end of the day, the Indian partner of the EU represents only 2% of the European trade.
03:29So before it becomes a turning point in the relations between both countries, it will take time.
03:38So, yeah, the detail of the actual deal, as you say, we don't know it yet.
03:41What do you think the security partnership is likely to entail?
03:44There are reports that India is going to be taking part in European defence initiatives.
03:50Yeah, that's a very interesting addition to the agenda.
03:55It was not there initially.
03:58And in the last few days, it was announced.
04:01And I would say as a political signal.
04:06It was a way to tell Donald Trump and to tell the world, look, the EU is also a geopolitical animal.
04:16And now we are going to speak about security, which is new for the EU.
04:21The EU was certainly not interested in security before.
04:25Now, the EU has a Indo-Pacific policy, a Indo-Pacific agenda, at least.
04:32And it is security-oriented.
04:34It is more security-oriented than before.
04:37So we will see what is in this agreement.
04:41But intelligence sharing in the framework of Primario 3, that is in the pipeline, and fusion centres for sharing intelligence again.
04:57Maybe something on the maritime security.
05:01That is definitely something we can expect.
05:05And cyber security at large.
05:08So the EU will probably not be in a position to deploy hard power the way a nation state would do.
05:19But they can coordinate nation states deployments and do as much as they can on the front I was mentioning, intelligence, cyber security, and so on and so forth.
05:33And what kind of wider impact do you think this deal might eventually have?
05:36Some are saying that converging EU and Indian positions could have a major influence, not just on trade between the EU and India, but on reshaping international institutions and even rules-based trading systems.
05:53Well, this is where I'm very sceptical.
05:56And I'm very sceptical for many reasons.
06:00But there are two reasons especially I would like to mention.
06:04One is the EU is still very uncomfortable with the India-Russia relations.
06:14Moscow and New Delhi are very close.
06:18Very close diplomatically.
06:21India has never objected to the invasion of Ukraine.
06:29Russia has not voted against Russia in the UN so far as the Ukraine war is concerned.
06:38And militarily, Russia remains a very important arms supplier of India.
06:47Not so much quantitatively.
06:49Yeah, Russia is still number one.
06:51But you see the U.S., Israel, France catching up, but qualitatively.
06:59And during the Republic Day Parade that took place today, for instance, we saw S-400, BrahMos, ballistic missiles that have been developed by India and Russia.
07:15That makes the Europeans uncomfortable.
07:18And the fact that India continues to import a lot of Russian oil does not help.
07:27Plus, another bone of contention that makes this rapprochement more problematic, human rights.
07:35India is becoming an illiberal democracy.
07:41The European Union keeps saying this is the largest democracy in the world.
07:48It is not.
07:49It is not anymore.
07:51And the European Parliament has passed resolutions on these issues.
07:57Human rights, rule of law, minorities' rights.
08:02And that may arise again.
08:06When the EU Parliament will have to ratify the deals which will be signed tomorrow, these questions of human rights may well come back.
08:18So, how deep this rapprochement will be?
08:23Will it be so deep that you can expect a kind of transformation or at least influence on the multilateral system?
08:36I repeat, I'm a bit sceptical.
08:38Yeah, because we've seen Donald Trump try to apply that same pressure on India when it comes to purchasing oil from Moscow.
08:45Do you think there will have been an awful lot of pressure behind the scenes leading up to this deal, particularly in the past year, on issues like Moscow and also on the issue of human rights?
08:56And do you think that India is going to start having a different attitude now when it comes to the EU more generally?
09:00Well, behind doors, we don't know.
09:07But what we know is that the Europeans are not putting pressure on India as much as the U.S. are doing, which is really paradoxical.
09:17The EU, the Europeans are facing Russia, but they are not as determined to dissuade India from importing oil from Russia as the U.S. are, which is really, yeah, I repeat, paradoxical.
09:34Even Chancellor Mertz, when he was in India earlier this month, said he's not going to lobby to put pressure on India on that front.
09:47Interestingly, the person who spoke about this last week, in fact, when he was visiting New Delhi, was the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Poland.
09:59And that was very revealing of the tensions that is palpable on this question of the India-Russia relations, because this minister said, well, we are concerned and we would like you to distance yourself from Russia.
10:19And the response was, well, mind your business.
10:24We are not going to make any change so far as natural interest is concerned.
10:31So it's not so easy to speak about these issues with the Indian government.
10:39And, yeah, behind the doors, maybe things are being said, but I repeat, the U.S. are doing more publicly, at least, when this India-Russia relation is concerned.
10:57Christophe, we'll have to leave it there for now.
10:59Thanks so much for being with us on the programme, though.
11:01That's Christophe Jafferleau, author, political scientist and research director at the French National Centre for Scientific Research.
11:07Well, thank you very much.
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