India, EU hold First ever Security, Defence Dialogue.

June 13, 2022

The European Union (EU) and India held the first-ever Security and Defence.
The two sides reviewed their defence relations and evolving security situation in Europe, India’s neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific.
The maiden dialogue between India and the EU took place in Brussels pursuant to a decision taken at the India-EU Summit in July 2020.
The two sides noted a number of positive developments in the area of security and defence cooperation in recent years, including the establishment of a regular maritime security dialogue, which met for the second time in February 2022, the first-ever joint naval exercises held in June 2021, and a number of joint workshops on the subject of fostering maritime security.
The two sides during the consultations also discussed various means of increasing India-EU cooperation on maritime security, implementation of the European code of conduct on arms export to India’s neighbourhood, cooperation in co-development and co-production of defence equipment, including India’s participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) in the area of security and defence policy.
Both sides agreed to increase India-EU defence and security cooperation as an important pillar of the bilateral strategic relations.
According to the Embassy of India, Brussels, the next consultations will be held in Delhi at a mutually agreed convenient time.
The dialogue took place at a time when the Ukraine conflict is raging and many European nations condemning Russia for it.
India, so far, has abstained from voting against Moscow in the United Nations. However, India has all along called for dialogue to end the conflict at the earliest.