NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte speaks with European Union foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas during an EU summit at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, on February 3, 2025.
| Photo Credit: AP
The EU’s top foreign policy and security official, Kaja Kallas, has indicated a shift in the bloc’s dialogue postures, with a greater emphasis on pragmatism, transactionalism and mutual benefit in its approach. Ms Kallas indicated this would inform Brussels’s discussions with New Delhi later this month when European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and the College of Commissioners will visit India.
“The majority of countries are reluctant to make a choice between autocracies opposing the West and the West itself. It was the same during the Cold War,” Ms Kallas said during her opening address at a conference of EU ambassadors in Brussels on Monday (February 3, 2025).
Countries were guided by their self-interest and “not by whether they are allies of the EU, the US, China or Russia” , she said.
“This is true across the world, look at Türkiye and the Gulf States in peace mediation roles with their own strategic agendas and transactional approaches,” said Ms Kallas.
“The question is whether the EU should become transactional too. In many ways it is time we should,” she added.
The remarks come two weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump’s return to the White House and hours after he threatened to slap tariffs onto the bloc’s exports to America.
Ms Kallas called for the E.U. to have more “mutually beneficial” projects with partners, citing the recent trade deals with Mexico and ‘Mercusor’ (a group comprising Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay) as pragmatic and logical.
“We should have more mutually beneficial projects like these,” she said, adding, “This is the spirit which we will take to India this year.”
“ The visit of the College is a chance to deepen a relationship that represents a quarter of global population and GDP,” Ms Kallas said. During her speech Ms Kallas said every country had a different cultural and historical background and the EU would adopt a tailor-made approach to its partners.
Previously, India has bristled at E.U. criticisms over New Delhi’s purchases of Russian oil after Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar had criticized the E.U. for its double standards, citing its own Russian oil and gas purchase policies.
Last month, Ms Von der Leyen’s trade chief, Maroš Šefčovic, had told media outlet Politico that the forthcoming India visit was “a very strong political signal” and suggested there would be new areas of sectoral cooperation.
India and the E.U. have had nine rounds of discussions on a ‘free trade’ agreement (FTA), after talks were relaunched in 2021. The India — EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) was launched in 2022 to deepen trade and technology ties.
Published – February 03, 2025 09:06 pm IST
