By EuAsiaNews,
Brussels : The Ninth European Union-India summit to be held in the French city of Marseille on Monday is expected to adopt three documents aimed at strengthening relations between Brussels and New Delhi.
French Minister of State in charge of European Affairs, Jean-Pierre Jouyet, told a debate in the European Parliament (EP) here Wednesday that the summit will adopt three documents related with a revised 2005 Joint Action Plan, a work programme on energy and climate change and an aviation agreement.
“We hope we will be able to sign a very important agreement on aviation. This is an agreement which has already been initialed by the negotiators at the beginning of the year,” he said .
France holds the current EU Presidency .
The one-day summit will also discuss global issues like Burma, Afghanistan, Iran and the global financial situation.
The Indian side will be led by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and the EU by French President Nicolas Sarkozy.
On her part, Margot Wallstrom, Vice President of the European Commission in charge of Institutional Relations and Communication, said EU-India trade end investment have continued to expand with trade exchanges rising from 28.6 billion euro in 2003 to over 55 billion euro in 2007.
Wallstrorm, speaking in place of EU Commissioner for external relations Benita Ferrero-Waldner who is in New York for the General Assembly , said negotiations on free trade agreement between the 27-member bloc and India were making good progress.
She said the EU will be using the bulk of the indicative budget of 470 mn euro for India for 2007-2013 to support specially millennium development goals related to health and education programmes.
“We believe that our relations must be guided through promotion of peace, human rights and comprehensive security,” stressed Wallstrom
During the debate several Members of Parliament (MEPs) expressed deep concern at the current situation of Christian minorities in India.
“Our resolution rightly expressed concern about the recent killing of Christians in the Orissa province and unrest in Jammu and Kashmir calling for those responsible to be punished, ” said British MEP Charles Tannock speaking on behalf of the Group of the European People’s Party (Christian Democrats) and European Democrats, EPP-D, the biggest group in the EP.
Tannock, who is the co-chair of the Friends of Indian group in the EP , said he wants to see enhanced EU-India ties emerging from the summit and stressed that it is high time that India be granted a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.
Spanish MEP Menendez del Valle speaking on behalf of the Socialist group , the second-largest in the EP, called on the EU to express concern at the upcoming summit about the treatment of Christians in Orissa and other areas.
“We are particularly concerned about religious conflict in India,” he said.
British MEP Emma Nicholson speaking on behalf of the Liberals group called on the summit to explore ways to upgrade EU-India ties and urged for greater intelligence sharing in the fight against terrorism .
“India has much to teach the EU on culture,” she stressed.
British MEP Neena Gill, chair of EP delegation for relations with India, welcomed the establishment in June 2008 of the India-European Parliament Friendship Group in the Indian parliament.
She said the upcoming summit should be an opportunity to deepen our ties.
” But we have to recognize that progress so far has been slow and the Joint Action Plan needs more resources ,” she told the House.
Gill, who is of Indian origin , said criticism of India’s difficulties and failings must be balanced by a full and frank admission of our own.
“We are right to condemn the poor treatment of minorities , but Europe must also remind us of our own problems with inter-communal violence and our own unsatisfactory record of in some areas on race relations,” she said.
Another British MEP Sajjad Karim said he saw in many ways India as a natural partner of the EU.
He, however, called on the EU to include a human rights clause in all FTA agreements.
“Whether it is thousands of disappeared or mass graves in Jammu and Kashmir or the murder of Christians in Orissa our commitments to human rights must remain absolute,” said Karim who is of Pakistani origin.
Karim , EP’s rapporteur on the free trade agreement with India, stressed that the EU-India FTA is not only “only important for us but is of global significance .”
After the debate the House adopted a joint resolution with 392 votes in favour, 44 against and 29 abstentions reaffirming its strong support for the strengthening of the strategic relationship between the EU and India, and for an exploration of further ways to upgrade the relationship.
It called for concrete conclusions to emerge from the summit on economic, political, security, trade and other issues of mutual interest and underlined the EU’s firm commitment to the establishment of a comprehensive, wide-ranging and ambitious Free Trade Agreement between the EU and India and urges both sides to work towards bringing negotiations to a successful conclusion by the end of 2008.
The resolution notes that domestic politics in India is “currently facing a number of crises, such as the unremitting violence of Islamist Jihadism and Hindu radicalism, the intercommunal tensions in Jammu and Kashmir, attacks on Christians, many of them of Dalit origin, in Orissa, the spread of Maoist insurgency (Naxalites) in at least twelve states and natural disasters in the north east.”
The EP recognizes that India provides a model for handling cultural and religious pluralism, despite intermittent and local difficulties among religions, including those between Hindus and Christians, the resolution expresses, however, deep concern at the current situation of Christian minorities, and regrets the impact that the anti-conversion laws that have spread among several Indian states may have on freedom of religion.
It regrets the outbreak of riots in Jammu and Kashmir in August 2008 and recommends that the authorities take all reasonable steps to ensure that elections can be held in Jammu and Kashmir in a stable environment.
The EP believes that the opening up of Kashmir to a free flow of trade and persons is essential in order to break the deadlock of repression and violence and looks forward to the time when there can be a reduction in the military presence which would be conducive to the normal functioning of civil society, business and tourism.
It calls on the EU and India to make clear their joint commitment to dealing with the scourge of terrorism, and urges enhanced cooperation on intelligence-sharing, and requests that serious consideration be given to India having privileged status within Europol.
The resolution notes the approval by the Nuclear Suppliers Group of the US-India civil nuclear accord and calls on the Indian Government to transform its nuclear test moratorium into a legally binding commitment.