Context:

• The making of AUKUS eclipsed another Indo-Pacific-related announcement: The release of the “EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific”.
• This is rather unfair because this document is very rich and needs to be analysed in the context of the rapprochement between the EU and India, which culminated in the June EU-India summit, a “turning point” according to some analysts.

 

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• Unsurprisingly, the EU strategy in the Indo-Pacific appears to be over-determined by China’s expansionism.
• The display of force and increasing tensions in regional hotspots such as in the South and East China Sea and in the Taiwan Strait may have a direct impact on European security and prosperity.
• At the same time, it points out that the EU, “while pushing back where fundamental disagreements exist with China, such as on human rights”, will also “pursue its multifaceted engagement with China”, “engaging bilaterally to promote solutions to common challenges, cooperating on issues of common interest and encouraging China to play its part in a peaceful and thriving Indo-Pacific region”.

 

Objectives of EU Indo-Pacific strategy

• If security interests are highlighted in the beginning, they are rather low in the list of the objectives of the EU Indo-Pacific strategy, which are listed as: “Sustainable and inclusive prosperity; green transition; ocean governance; digital governance and partnerships; connectivity; security and defence; human security”. 
• The EU will continue to use its restrictive measures (sanctions) regime against individuals, entities and bodies responsible for, involved in, or associated with serious human rights violations and abuses worldwide. 
• In international fora, the EU will work with like-minded Indo-Pacific partners to push back any initiative that undermines the human rights enshrined in customary international law and in international human rights instruments.”
• The EU strategy currently appears to be pointed more towards building on established partnerships and developing new ones with like-minded countries in the Indo-Pacific to ensure its role and growing presence in the Indo-Pacific region.
• There is a willingness to work with Quad partner countries, especially on climate change, technology and vaccines. Given China’s expansionist tendencies in the Western Pacific and its growing footprints in the Indian Ocean, the EU is willing to work with the Quad countries in the Indo-Pacific region.
• The EU is feeling the need to play a bigger role in Asia, to bear greater responsibility and to have an impact on the affairs of this region, whose fate is intertwined with that of Europe.

 

Significance of EU For India as well as Indo-Pacific

• Denmark, a country of barely six million people, can establish a significant green partnership with India, is a reminder that even smaller countries of Europe have much to offer in India’s economic, technological, and social transformation.
  • Tiny Luxembourg brings great financial clout, Norway offers impressive maritime technologies, Estonia is a cyber power, Czechia has deep strengths in optoelectronics, Portugal is a window to the Lusophone world, and Slovenia offers commercial access to the heart of Europe through its Adriatic sea port at Koper.
  • As India begins to realise this untapped potential, there are new openings with the 27-nation EU.
• The EU and the Indo-Pacific are natural partner regions in terms of trade and investment.
  • The EU is the top investor, the leading provider of development cooperation, and one of the biggest trading partners in the Indo-Pacific region.
  • Together, the Indo-Pacific and Europe account for over 70% of the global trade in goods and services, and over 60% of foreign direct investment flows.
  • Trade exchanges between the Indo-Pacific and Europe are higher than between any other geographical regions in the world.
  • The Indo-Pacific region hosts major waterways that are of vital importance to EU trade, including the Malacca Straits, the South China Sea, and the Bab el-Mandeb Strait.

 

Impacts of EU’s Indo-Pacific Strategy

• Contribute to Regional Security: A stronger Europe with greater geopolitical agency is very welcome in India. India is conscious that Europe can’t match America’s military heft in the Indo-Pacific. But it could help strengthen the military balance and contribute to regional security in multiple other ways.
  • Europe could significantly boost India’s capacity to influence future outcomes in the Indo-Pacific. It would also be a valuable complement to India’s Quad coalition with Australia, Japan and the United States.
• Military Security With Development Infrastructure: The EU’s Indo-Pacific strategy is likely to have a much greater impact on the region more immediately and on a wider range of areas than military security.
  • They range from trade and investment to green partnerships, the construction of quality infrastructure to digital partnerships, and from strengthening ocean governance to promoting research and innovation.
• Multipolar World: As the deepening confrontation between the US and China begins to squeeze South East Asia, Europe is widely seen as widening the strategic options for the region.
  • The perspective is similar in India, which now sees the EU as a critical element in the construction of a multipolar world.

 

Importance of Indo-Pacific region:

1. Maintaining regional stability.
2. Strong ties with the US are seen as a vital tool for enhancing India’s strategic posture.
3. For the long-term vision of national interest.
4. China’s increasingly active presence in the Indian Ocean region as well as its efforts to expand geopolitical reach in Asia and beyond by the use of trade and military.
5. For adhering to freedom of navigation, adherence to rules-based order and stable trade environment.
6. For free sea and air lanes, connectivity and upholding international rules and norms.

 

Role and Implications for India in the Indo – pacific region:

• The Indo-Pacific, as described in the National security strategy, represents the most populous and economically dynamic part of the world and stretches from the west coast of India to the western shores of the United States.
• India has always been a country with great national ambitions and is one of the most important advocates of the concept of “Indo-Pacific Strategy”.
• With opening of economy, India has been connecting with its Indian Ocean neighbours and major maritime powers of the world.

 

Concerns

• In terms of partnerships, India does not figure very prominently. By contrast, ASEAN is presented as “an increasingly important partner for the EU”. 
• One full section entitled “the centrality of ASEAN” is dedicated to the “strategic partnership” that the EU and the ASEAN have developed over the last 40 years. New Partnership and Cooperation Agreements (PCAs) are announced with Thailand and Malaysia. 
  • However, India appears in the list of the countries which already have an Indo-Pacific strategy and with which the EU is interested in a deeper “engagement”, a list made of ASEAN, Australia, India, Japan, New Zealand, the Republic of Korea, the UK and US.
• The document does not mention the role India could play in value-chain diversification, a top priority of the EU since the Covid-19 pandemic in particular. 
• The “pharmacy of the world” could have appeared as a useful partner of the EU to free Europeans from their dependence on China in that field. 
  • The only example of diversification that the document mentions pertains to semiconductors. In this domain, the EU intends to diversify “with partners such as Japan, the Republic of Korea and Taiwan”. 
• Yet, India is mentioned few pages later in a similar perspective when it is said that the EU will help “low and middle-income Indo-Pacific partners to secure access to the Covid-19 vaccine through the Covax facility and through other means” and that, in this context, “India will be a focus for cooperation, including on the quality of active pharmaceutical ingredients”.
• The recent military cooperation between Europeans and India is even put on par with their cooperation with Pakistan: “Over the past year, EU Naval Force Somalia (EU NAVFOR) and Operation Atlanta conducted successful joint naval activities with Indo-Pacific partners, including Japan, Pakistan, India and Djibouti”. 
• ASEAN also remains the main partner of the EU from the military point of view: “The EU will seek to play a stronger role in the ASEAN security architecture and participate in the ASEAN Defence Ministers Meeting Plus (ADMM+) structures and the East Asia Summit”. 
• India is listed as the EU’s first partner only in one area: “under the project Enhancing Security Cooperation in and with Asia (ESIWA), which covers counter-terrorism, cybersecurity, maritime security and crisis management. 
  • The pilot partners are India, Indonesia, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Singapore and Vietnam, with EU military experts already operating in Indonesia and in Vietnam.”
• Thus, the EU strategy for cooperation in the Indo-Pacific is more in tune with the German vision of the Indo-Pacific than with the French one. For Berlin, trade, economic cooperation, human rights and engaging China at the same time — and the ASEAN — matter more than security and India, the two pillars of the French Indo-Pacific strategy. 

 

Way Forward

• EU member states need to further fine-tune their engagement with China and within the region, adding an extra layer of sophistication to the EU’s role there.
• EU cooperation with its partners must become concrete and show its value as an alternative sustainable model.
• If the EU is to promote and lead a comprehensive approach in the Indo-Pacific, coherent and coordinated actions with India, ASEAN, Japan, Australia and the UK are the only way forward.
• Implementing joint projects to boost digital connectivity could be the first step.