European Union-India Partnership Performing Below Potential

"you too are facing the task of building a new society in the place of old, of creating a simple community out of many while preserving the riches and the diversities of each".

- (Dr.) D.K. Giri

Walter Hallstein, the President of the EC Commission in April 1963.

The relations between the European Economic Community (the forerunner of the European Union) and India did not develop in the 1960s when the former was born. They were put under close scrutiny following the British application to join the Community. Among other things,

India’s priorities in her foreign policy of the time and EC’s inward-looking policies were the contributory factors to the slow growth of relations. European indifference was matched by India’s lack of political interest in deepening the relations. Studies on British membership negotiations with the EEC and its impact on India underline this point.

With the entry of Britain into the EEC, India’s relations entered into the second phase as she renewed her efforts to engage the EEC in a broadly based trade and cooperation agreement. The context was provided by the Joint Declaration of Intent (JDI) annexed to the Act of Accession signed by the United Kingdom, Denmark and Ireland with EEC. As a result, the Commercial Cooperation Agreement (CCA) was signed on 17 December 1973 and came into force on 1 April 1974. CCA was the first of a whole generation of agreements.