15th meeting of India-EU Summit to be held in virtual mode today

The Summit will review India-EU cooperation covering political and security relations, trade and investment and economic cooperation. It is also expected to discuss developments around the COVID-19 pandemic and contemporary global matters of interest to both sides.

The Summit is taking place in the background of EU wanting to play a more active role globally and also attaching higher priority to the relationship with India and trying to look at the partnership in a more substantive way.

The new Presidents of the European Commission and European Council had taken over in December 2019. The new leadership believes that the EU needs to play a stronger role in the global platform and has shown a lot of interest in India.

It was in the year 2000 in which India and the European Union decided to institutionalise the mechanism at the level of the Summit. This year marks 20 years of the Summit process between India and the EU. The last Summit between the two sides took place in 2017.

European Union Ambassador to India, Ugo Astuto said that both India and EU share strong bilateral relation. He said, the 15th summit slated for tomorrow holds high significance as both the partners will pledge together to fight the menace of COVID-19.

Ugo Astuto in a tweet sharing the flag of European Union & India said, "EU and India share common values & interests, with a comprehensive partnership covering a wide range of sectors. The summit will be an opportunity to strengthen the strategic partnership. With Keycap digit one day to go, watch @EUAmbIndia, as he shares a bit more about the upcoming #EUIndiaSummit".

Mr. Astuto said, both India and the European Union will discuss multiple issues in the virtual bilateral summit ranging from climate change to security and global peace. The Ambassador expressed his confidence in stronger Indo-EU partnership on multiple fronts.