The problem with colonizers is that, long after their colonies have become free, their language and mindset do not change. This characteristic of Europe has come to the fore in the process of the European Union negotiating a free-trade agreement with India.
The EU – led by unelected officials who have manipulated their way to positions and prerogatives of power that rightfully belong to elected governments of sovereign nations – conducts itself as a supranational authority that can dictate terms, and not only of trade, to ‘lesser’ countries.
EU officials tend to forget that India is no longer a ‘lesser’ country. Its elected leadership represents 1.4 billion people with a huge market which all countries, big and small alike, want access to. However, if EU leaders persist with their overbearing tone and tenor, the negotiations are unlikely to deliver a deal.
Perhaps, the EU, where the media prominently flashed photos and reports of the Tianjin meeting of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping is yet to grasp the message that went to US President Donald Trump.
Without bluster or bravado, rhetoric or retaliation, Modi let Washington know that Delhi will not accept diktats; nor will it be cowed down by high tariffs and threat of even higher tariffs. The EU would do well to take note that a government which did not yield to the unreasonable terms of the US may not even deign to discuss with negotiators the India-Russia relationship. At least that is how a few informed observers in New Delhi see the exercise.
India and the EU earlier this month held the 13th round of talks on the free-trade agreement (FTA) in New Delhi. EU Commissioner for Trade Maroš Šefčovič travelled to the Indian capital along with Agriculture Commissioner Christophe Hansen who reportedly was tasked to iron out issues on agriculture and dairy, as well as non-tariff barriers affecting those sectors that New Delhi considers vital.
The next round is scheduled to take place in Brussels in October. India asked the EU to take a larger role in defense and security in the Indo-Pacific.
While India’s expectations in this matter have not been spelled out, the EU was quick to seize the opening and expand the terms of the FTA negotiations to include a ‘a new strategic agenda to raise bilateral relations with India to a higher level.’ This includes areas such as trade and technology, defense and security, and connectivity and climate change.
After unveiling these proposals, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen spoke to Modi and briefed him on the ‘EU’s vision for ties with India.’ Modi has welcomed the New Strategic EU-India Agenda adopted on September 17 and expressed readiness to take the India-EU relationship to the next level.
Talks on the India-EU FTA actually began way back in June 2007 but there was little progress for nearly 15 years. Negotiations were revived in 2022 and picked up pace after Donald Trump’s second term began with tariffs on both Europe and India. With India’s access to the US market at risk until the conflict over tariffs is resolved, it has drawn up a map for reaching out to at least 40 other countries. This has spurred the EU to push for a new alliance with India, which already has a $100-billion FTA with the European Free Trade Association, comprising countries such as Switzerland that are not EU members.
The EU’s ‘Atlanticists’ – an euphemism for officials whose primary loyalty is to Washington and not to Europe or European capitals, a description of von der Leyen and top EU diplomat Kaja Kallas – are pushing Trump’s agenda to make India subservient to US interests in Europe. They want to embroil India in their efforts to effectively support Ukraine.
Modi has explicitly reiterated India’s commitment to ‘an early and peaceful resolution of the Ukraine conflict.’ What the EU leadership wants is to drag India into an anti-Russia front and for it to line up behind Europe, which is lined up behind Trump, but has been told to raise resources and fund Ukraine's military needs and goals.
Nothing could be more presumptuous and preposterous at this juncture, when India has unequivocally asserted its strategic autonomy. When New Delhi did not buckle under pressure from Washington, it is unlikely to even seriously consider the extraneous demands of bureaucrats in Brussels such as von der Leyen and Kallas, who continue to weigh whether it is possible to ‘completely decouple India from Russia.’
The recent visit of two EU commissioners to finalize an agreement has only opened up a new can of worms.
The EU, which has itself been threatened with tariffs by Trump and cannot in any way resist his demands, has now been reduced to the status of a vassal. The EU has gone along with every diktat and expectation of the US military establishment, especially the eastward expansion of NATO. This pushed other countries, such as Finland and Sweden, to abandon their long-standing neutrality for joining NATO. These countries, like Germany, have pledged a percentage of their GDP for defense – in effect pledging to buy US arms and armaments. The gap between the aims and objectives of NATO and the EU are becoming increasingly blurred. The EU is now seeking to suck India, by linking the FTA to a New Strategic Partnership, into NATO’s standoff with Russia.
Kallas called out India for taking part this month in Russia’s Zapad military exercises, along with Belarus, and also for importing Russian oil. She said these ‘stand in the way of closer ties’ with the EU. She listed India’s oil purchases from Russia and participation in military drills as ‘obstacles to our cooperation.’
The EU’s circumstances provide no basis for its supra-national officials to take such a hard line. Its economic condition is hardly enviable. It has been locked into a war which it can neither continue waging nor end because that depends on the US; and, European powers such as Germany, France and Italy, for all their bravado, know that the US-led West will lose this war to Russia. They know that their sanctions have had little or no effect on Russia; and that is the reason they want countries like India and China to fall into line with the unilateral US sanctions that have no legitimacy in international law.
The EU is also weary of taking in and providing for refugees and wants to ease its burden. It has no option but to accept, and continue, the US proxy war against Russia in Ukraine as its own and fund its own security, defense and military needs. Unable to resist Trump’s military diktat, the Europeans are now reduced to being a channel for pursuing US objectives against Russia by other means.
India’s bilateral trade with the EU is about $137.5 billion per year, nearly $6 billion more than with the US. That makes the EU India’s second biggest trading partner. It accounts for less than 12% of India’s exports (2.4% of the EU’s imports), which places India in ninth place among the EU’s trading partners, far behind the US and China.
Four years into the Ukraine war, the EU continues its economic ties with Russia, despite US sanctions. In 2024, EU-Russia trade was $73.1 billion, down from over $300 billion in 2021. Much of the EU’s imports from Russia are liquefied natural gas (LNG). The EU was the largest buyer of Russian LNG in the period from 2022 to JUly 2025, purchasing 51% of Russia’s LNG exports, followed by China (21%) and Japan (18%). The US also continues to trade with Russia.
In the event, the EU asking India to stop its purchases of Russian energy is rank hypocrisy, typical of the doubletalk and double standards that colonialists and imperialists seek to enforce on those over whom they presume authority. The arrogant tone of a Brussels bureaucrat’s ultimatum – that if both parties did not reach a mutually agreeable solution to their positions on Russia and Ukraine then no agreement would be reached – ignores larger realities like the size of India’s economy, population, growth dynamics, market potential and, above all, a refusal to compromise on strategic autonomy. The EU also appears to ignore India’s will and ability to conduct an independent foreign policy in the interest of its own people.
New Delhi has not responded in kind, but the way it acted, without loud words, to deal with Trump’s repeated threats should serve as a cautionary note to the EU. There is no way any power or its self-appointed US proxies are going to decide what India’s relationship with Russia should be. In the view of retired diplomats, New Delhi should not even acknowledge such an agenda, let alone discuss India’s relations with another country as part of the trade talks with the EU.
Shastri Ramachandaran, senior journalist and commentator on political and foreign affairs and author of Beyond Binaries: The World of India and China. First featured in RT News, we are delighted to present this article in Cult Current with full attribution.