The 15th meeting of the India-European Union Summit will be held via video conference today and will be co-chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, President of European Council Charles Michel and President of European Commission Ursula von der Leyen.
Among other issues, COVID-19 pandemic, its impact on foreign trade, movement of people, and response to the pandemic are likely to be discussed by the two sides. India-EU relationship, trade and investment and economic issues will also be discussed.
Meanwhile the media citing inputs from their sources said that the meeting is taking place with EU wanting to play a more active role globally and thus also attaches high priority to its relationship with India.
One point of significance of the summit is that the new Presidents of the European Commission and European Council had taken over in December last year. The new leadership believes that EU needs to play a stronger role in the global platform and showed a lot of interest in India and also held telephonic conversations with Prime Minister Narendra Modi soon after taking over.
On scope of Free Trade Agreement with EU during the India-EU summit, sources said, there was a pause on the issue after intensive negotiations for years. In the year 2000 India and the European Union decided to institutionalise mechanism at the level of the Summit. This year marks 20 years of the Summit process between India and EU. The last Summit between the two sides took place in 2017.