India-EU agenda can fundamentally alter global geopolitics—if Europe stands up to Trump

In the context of the new emerging global order, India was required to reshape and nuance its foreign policy. It has done so, based on core national interests. Will the EU do the same?

Prime Minister Narendra Modi with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen before a meeting at Hyderabad House in New Delhi | Photo: Praveen Jain/ThePrint

A New Strategic India-EU Agenda was released by the European Commission on 17 September 2025 by Kaja Kallas, who is the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The new Strategy focuses on five pillars of cooperation—prosperity and sustainability, technology and innovation, security and defense, connectivity and global issues, and enablers across the pillars. It seeks to restructure the India-EU ties based on these pillars.

Implicit in these developments is the realisation on both sides that the emerging, fragmented global system not only challenges the Westphalian order but poses new security challenges with regard to a rule-based order in the Indo-Pacific. With the weaponisation of tariffs as an instrument of foreign policy, President Donald Trump has, like in Hegelian dialectics, fundamentally altered US foreign policy, which is today in a dialectical relationship with tariffs.

New world order and US tantrums

In a brilliant article on 11 April 2025 titled ‘Giving Birth to the New International Order’, Jeffrey D. Sachs mentioned what philosopher Antonio Gramsci famously declared. “The crisis consists precisely in the fact that the old is dying and the new cannot be born; in this interregnum a great variety of morbid symptoms appear.”Gramsci wrote it in his cell as a political prisoner in fascist Italy after World War I.

“A century later, we are in another interregnum, and the morbid symptoms are everywhere.  The US-led order has ended, but the multi-polar world is not yet born.  The urgent priority is to give birth to a new multilateral order that can keep the peace and the path to sustainable development,” Sachs noted.

Sachs underlined that the Westphalian order emerged from more than four centuries of European imperialism and colonialism.  From the Congress of Vienna that ended the Napoleonic Wars (1815) to the outbreak of World War I (1914), imperialism was led by Britain, aided by slavery and indenture.

The Westphalian order, led by the US and the victors of that war, led to the birth of the United Nations, where power was controlled by the P5, the victors.  In theory, it ended the era of imperialism, brute conquest, and colonialism. The new hegemon was the US, while two-thirds of the world was going through decolonisation and trying to recover from colonialism, loot, and plunder.

In the 80 years since World War II, Asia has recovered its place in the global economy.  As of today, Asia constitutes around 50 per cent of the world economy, according to International Monetary Fund (IMF) estimates. This is a period of transit between orders, which will be completed when the geopolitical weight of the global South, i.e., Asia, Africa, and Latin America, matches their rising economic weight.  This needed shift in geopolitics is inevitable but has been long delayed as the US and EU refuse to accept their shrinking global space.

With the rise of MAGA and Trump 2.0, neo-imperialism is back, as the US bullies sovereign States like Venezuela, and threatens the future of the global economy with unilateral tariffs and sanctions that are in blatant violation of international rules of trade laid down in the World Trade Organisation (WTO).

This is accompanied by other US geopolitical tantrums: abandoning the fight against climate change, attacking the Sustainable Development Goals, etc, reflecting the truly “morbid symptoms” of a dying old order.

Multilateralism is presently in shambles. WTO is on life support. The Security Council is paralysed, and new institutions, including G20 and BRICS, are pushing their way into the space vacated by the old order, despite Trump’s pressure.

In the context of the new emerging global order, India was required to reshape and nuance its foreign policy. It has done so, based on core national interests.

The question arises, will the EU do the same? If yes, then when? In India’s perception, the EU, a powerful economic bloc, has not stood down Trump. India, when required, has done so.

Indians are aware that the EU emphasises soft power and is described as a normative power. The EU has been described as a foreign policy actor intent on shaping, instilling, diffusing, and normalising rules and values in international affairs through non-coercive means. In international affairs, the EU seeks to promote the values on which the Union is founded, including democracy, human rights, fundamental freedoms, and the rule of law.

This is an approach quite different from how India engages with the world. New Delhi does not seek to export the principles enshrined in the Constitution to the outside world. In a troubled neighbourhood, India also looks for hard power from its strategic partners.

The draft agenda needs to be analysed from this perspective.

EU draft agenda

Here are a few points mentioned in the new Strategy document that need special attention:

• The document states that India, the world’s largest democracy and fastest-growing major economy, remains a vital partner for the EU.

True, but many obstacles remain.

• It adds that Europe and the Indo-Pacific are deeply interconnected, confronted by “imperial ambitions and regional tensions” – including in the Taiwan Strait, the South China Sea and the Red Sea – that threaten the rules-based international order, as well as the security and prosperity of both regions. In this fragmented global landscape, the EU and India are natural strategic partners committed to strengthening cooperation across a wide spectrum.

But does India in 2025, in the global disorder created by Trump, have the same priorities?

• Raising the EU-India Strategic Partnership to a higher level is a strategic priority. The EU and India have the potential and determination to shape one of the defining partnerships of the 21st century.

This is a given, but not every EU Member State regards India as a high priority.

• The EU and India are pluralistic democracies. Both support a rules-based international order. As major trading partners, both have an interest in working together to address global trade distortions.

This is true, but from India’s viewpoint, the EU seems to have caved in to Trump’s pressure. Unlike New Delhi.

• The EU and India are mutually enabling partners. Through regulatory expertise, single market access, and joint innovation, the EU supports India’s inclusive and sustainable growth – aligning with India’s vision of becoming a developed country by 2047.

In the present international scenario, this seems unworkable.

• Sixty years after establishing diplomatic ties – and building on more than 30 years of EU-India cooperation and 20 years of Strategic Partnership – both sides remain committed to elevating the partnership. India is a clear foreign policy priority for the EU and its Member States, according to the draft.

Let us hope so.

• An EU-India Free Trade Agreement (FTA), substantially reducing tariff and non-tariff barriers, would unlock major trade and investment flows, ranking as one of the largest agreements of its kind globally. Both sides aim to conclude negotiations by the end of 2025.

This would be a most positive development.

• As economic security gains importance, the EU and India are becoming indispensable partners in de-risking efforts and in building resilient, trustworthy supply chains.

This is unworkable at present.

• The Strategic Dialogue on Foreign and Security Policy was launched in June 2025. The EU and India are now exploring the creation of an EU-India Security and Defense Partnership.

True. But the EU continues to rely heavily on ‘soft’ power, while India looks for ‘hard’ power in its strategic partners.

• The two sides should improve coordination and exchange views on the links between the Euro-Atlantic and Indo-Pacific regions, particularly the connection between the Mediterranean, the Red Sea, and the Indian Ocean as key interfaces between the two.

Why? How does this benefit India as a non-NATO member?

• The EU promotes peace and security based on respect for international law and will further engage with India on all aspects of countering Russia’s military aggression against Ukraine.

This point needs to be fleshed out, especially the EU’s current approach to Russia.

• EU and India both face serious terrorist threats. Pahalgam attack in April 2025 was a tragic reminder of terrorism’s human cost. Both partners confront challenges linked to terrorism’s connections with organized crime, as well as the need to combat terrorism financing, online propaganda, and risks posed by emerging technologies.

This is welcome.

• The EU and India share an interest in an open, predictable, and rules-based global trading system. The EU and India should therefore work together towards meaningful World Trade Organization (WTO) reform.

How is this possible when the EU has not resisted the weaponisation of trade and the collapse of free trade?

• The EU looks forward to continued engagement with India on human rights matters bilaterally and in the multilateral context. The EU welcomes India’s pledges as a candidate for membership of the UN Human Rights Council.

This is welcome.

• The institutional architecture of EU-India relations should be strengthened to support this new comprehensive strategic agenda. The EU-India Summit, providing the highest-level oversight over the joint strategic agenda, should be held annually.

It is unfortunate that annual Summits are no longer the norm, though it had been unanimously decided in June 2000 in Lisbon, at the first India-EU Summit.

The way forward

In retrospect, what adds complexity to the task of rediscovering each other in a strategic perspective is that India is regarded as a ‘modern state’ post-Independence. It has the attributes of sovereignty, territoriality and raison d’état (justification of sovereignty). In contrast, the EU is considered to be a ‘postmodern intra-state entity’, which does not emphasise sovereignty, separation of domestic and foreign affairs, and which, after Schengen, increasingly regards borders as irrelevant.

India, on its part, needs to appreciate that the EU and the Commission are an umbrella institution for relations with EU Member States. The Commission views this as a problem of ‘visibility’ or media misperception. The reality is more complex, with most European diplomats projecting their bilateral relationship over and above the umbrella institution. This also affects the effectiveness of the EU as a strategic policymaker vis-à-vis India.

The ‘way forward’ would depend on both sides bridging the gap and moving toward a dynamic relationship. It would be based on an updated strategic agenda, which corresponds with the political needs of both sides, taking into account the new emerging global order, as well as a pragmatic business relationship based on an FTA that satisfies both sides.

This is difficult but not impossible. The EU is aware that it needs to proactively counter Trump’s tariff policy. It also needs to rethink its present anti-Russia policy, driven by Eastern Europe and the Baltic States.

If successful, it could fundamentally alter the geopolitics of this millennium. The rest of the 21st century could then belong to India and the EU.

Bhaswati Mukherjee is a retired IFS officer. She has served as India’s ambassador to UNESCO, Paris, and the Netherlands. Views are personal.

(Edited by Ratan Priya)