New Delhi: Defence and military strategy is “on the table” for discussions between India and Germany later this month during the intergovernmental consultations led by Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Chancellor Olaf Scholz, said Philipp Ackermann, Berlin’s envoy to India, Tuesday.
“Defence will certainly be discussed and military policy, strategy will be discussed, it is on the table. The submarine deal is the decision of the Indian government that is beyond our influence and we will wait for what the Indian government has to say,” said Ackermann to ThePrint on the sidelines of an event hosted by the German embassy on “Diversity in Diplomacy”.
German manufacturer ThyssenKrupp Marine Systems (TKMS) is in the running for the contract on building the much-delayed Project 75 (India) submarines for the Indian Navy. Under the P75I project, India is looking for six advanced submarines with proven fuel-cell air independent propulsion (AIP) systems, which would work together with lithium-ion batteries, as reported by ThePrint earlier.
The two systems would, in effect, allow the submarines to stay underwater for around 12 days unlike the current available technology in the Indian Navy, which requires a submarine to constantly surface every two to three days to recharge its batteries.
The Indian Navy completed field trials of two AIP systems offered by German manufacturer TKMS and the Spanish firm Navantia.
The P75I project was first cleared in 2019 by then defence minister Nirmala Sitharaman and is a part of India’s strategic 30-year submarine building plan to build 24 submarines by 2030—18 conventional submarines and six nuclear powered submarines.
The Indian team was in Germany at the end of March 2024 to inspect the AIP technology of TKMS, followed by a visit to Spain to test Navantia’s technology as reported by ThePrint earlier.
Earlier Tuesday, Indian Defence Minister Rajnath Singh held a telephone conversation with his German counterpart Boris Pistorius.
“As you know, later this month the German Chancellor and a couple of ministers will come to Delhi for the intergovernmental consultations and one minister will be the [German] minister of defence. The phone call today served as a preparation for a bilateral meeting between the Raksha Mantri here and the minister of defence in Germany,” explained Ackermann to ThePrint.
The two “discussed a bit of the agenda, they discussed the projects they had,” added the German ambassador.
Ackermann added that defence cooperation between India and Germany is a key pillar of ties between the two countries, mentioning that a German naval frigate is expected to arrive at Goa around the same time as the intergovernmental consultations.
The intergovernmental consultations between India and Germany held every two years will occur in New Delhi in the last week of October. At least eight cabinet ministers from Germany are expected to join the German chancellor in India. This would be Scholz’s third visit to India following one in February 2023, as well as his attendance at the G20 Leaders’ Summit hosted by New Delhi in September 2023.
The last consultation which happened in 2022 in Berlin, saw the two sides deepen their partnership especially in the development sector. Germany promised India EUR 10 billion in developmental aid by 2030.
(Edited by Zinnia Ray Chaudhuri)