External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar. File
| Photo Credit: ANI

Europe and India can build a partnership that is “predictable”, Kaja Kallas, the foreign policy chief of the European Union, said on Tuesday (January 27, 2026), taking aim at the U.S., Russia, and China for increasing uncertainty in the world.

Ms. Kallas said that during the EU-India Summit on Tuesday (January 27, 2026) between Prime Minister Narendra Modi, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, and European Council President Antonio Costa, the EU had asked India to “put pressure” on Moscow to end the war in Ukraine.

India-EU Summit updates on January 27, 2026

Speaking at a think-tank event here, shortly after the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA) and Strategic and Defence Partnership (SDP) were announced, Ms. Kallas said the U.S.’s “tariff threats”, China’s “economic coercion”, and the “existential threat” to Europe from Russia were all common challenges.

Ms. Kallas, who was Estonia’s Prime Minister (2021-2024), is known for her outspoken views, especially after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In September 2025, Ms. Kallas had said that India’s participation in the Zapad military exercises and its imports of Russian oil “stand in the way of closer ties” between New Delhi and Brussels.

Accusing Russia of refusing to agree to a ceasefire with Ukraine and of bombing civilian targets, Ms. Kallas said that Moscow wanted to “push Ukrainian people to surrender”.

“What we have asked our Indian colleagues is to put pressure on the Russians so that they would also want peace, because this war is not good for Europe or for the [Global South] and that is an area of convergence for EU and India is that we both want sustainable peace”.

On Sunday, the Kremlin spokesperson had said that ceasefire talks in Abu Dhabi between Russia and Ukraine were under way, but that European leaders, particularly Ms. Kallas, would not be included in the talks.

Calling for India and the EU to cooperate on the Indo-Pacific, the EU top diplomat criticised China’s “weaponisation of trade” and highlighted the need for open sea lanes.

“[EU and India] both face economic coercive practices coming from China and to address this alone, we are both weak. But together we are much stronger [and can] stand up to this,” Ms. Kallas said, adding that if companies were “hit” by Chinese practices, prosperity would also suffer, and the EU-India FTA would help the two countries cooperate against this, and shore up the multilateral world order.

“When I go around the world, I see more and more countries want to build partnerships with Europe, because we are predictable, and that has become something of value,” Ms. Kallas, the EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Vice-President, said speaking at the Delhi-based Ananta Centre.

Referring to President Donald Trump’s imposition of new duties, without naming the U.S., she said that the “constant threat of tariffs” and the reversal of signed agreements “by an executive order” had created pressure on companies around the world.

She stressed that India and the EU must “build confidence” and work on trade, security, defence and foreign policy together. “[EU members] take a long time to negotiate an agreement, but when we do, we stick to them and actually implement them,” she said.

Ms. Kallas said it was time for India and the EU to cooperate on defence hardware as well.

“There is an interest in our EU member states for cooperation with the Indian defence industry, because we have these existential threats coming from Russia,” she said. “We have our member states increasing their defence expenditure… if European industries cannot deliver, we can buy from outside,” she said, adding that India and the EU could work together, not only on defence hardware, but maritime exercises, cybersecurity, and hybrid threats.

Published – January 27, 2026 08:28 pm IST

Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, arrived in New Delhi on a state visit on Saturday. She was received by Minister of State for Commerce and Industry Jitin Prasada.

European Council President Antonio Luis Santos da Costa and von der Leyen are the chief guests for the 77th Republic Day celebrations on Monday. It will be followed by the India-EU summit and the signing of a trade deal.

“We are on the cusp of a historic trade agreement (with India),” von der Leyen said this week at the World Economic Forum in Davos. Commerce Minister Piyush Goyal has called the upcoming FTA “the mother of all deals” as Brussels and New Delhi seek to open up new markets in the face of US tariffs and Chinese export controls.

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar on Thursday met ambassadors from the EU countries and called for collaboration to “derisk the world economy” in the face of erratic US policies. He said stronger India-EU ties will derisk the world economy by cooperating on resilient supply chains, reassure the international community by providing public goods like HADR, anti-piracy operations, and development projects, and stabilise the global order through stronger trade, mobility and security partnership.

Both sides have been at the receiving end of US president Donald Trump’s aggressive trade policies. India faces the highest tariff rate of 50% on its exports to the US, while the EU is yet to ratify a trade deal with Washington widely criticised for being lopsided.

The EU’s top diplomat Kaja Kallas has called India “indispensable” to Europe’s economic and strategic future. The 27-nation bloc has moved forward with a new security and defence partnership with India.

Together the EU and India account for about a quarter of the world’s population and GDP. Bilateral trade in goods reached 120 billion euros ($139 billion) in 2024, an increase of nearly 90% over the past decade, according to EU figures, with a further 60 billion euros ($69 billion) in trade in services.

ALSO READ: ‘Derisk World Economy Together’: Jaishankar Tells European Envoys Ahead Of India-EU Summit

External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar has said he can “fairly confidently” predict that 2026 will see an upswing in India’s ties with Europe and Luxembourg can give the support to ramp up New Delhi’s relationship with the European Union.

Highlighting that there is a fair amount of volatility and unpredictability in the world, and every country, every region, is reassessing its interests and calculations, Jaishankar said, countries are saying “it’s not enough to de-risk. Maybe we should be building closer friendships and deeper partnerships.”

“So are there other particular countries, particular relationships that we can trust more than others? And I think that common sense is today, bringing India and the European Union much closer,” Mr. Jaishankar said during his interaction with the Indian community in Luxembourg.

“So I can fairly confidently predict that 2026 will see an upswing in ties with Europe. You will see, certainly, I can speak for the Indian end of that, you will see a much greater investment of time and energy and attention on our part where Europe is concerned,” he said.

Mr. Jaishankar, who is on a six-day visit to France and Luxembourg, shared the video of his interaction with the Indian community on Tuesday on X and also said in another post: “Glad to interact with members of the Indian community in Luxembourg today. Underlined the significant deepening of our partnership with Luxembourg across political, business and technology domains.”

“Appreciate the contributions of our diaspora in deepening India – Luxembourg ties,” said Mr. Jaishankar during his first visit to Luxembourg.

Earlier in the morning, Mr. Jaishankar met Prime Minister Luc Frieden, had a long, detailed discussion with Foreign Minister Javier Bethel, and called on Guillaume V, the Grand Duke of Luxembourg. “It’s really been a very, very productive and a very satisfying day,” he said.

The Minister started his speech during the interaction by saying that at all his meetings in Luxembourg, “I heard very strong and very effusive words of praise for the Indian community.”

Talking about India’s relationship with Luzembourge, Mr. Jaishankar said, “At a time when we are seeking to ramp up that relationship with the European Union (EU), the support that Luxembourg can give us, the influence that it will have over … the collective decision making in Brussels is really quite significant, and I was given really the fullest assurance that, we are right now in a very advanced stage of negotiating a free trade agreement.”

Drawing attention to how India was doing “very much more and very much differently than before,” the Minister said, a lot of discussions, therefore, “were about how the digital infrastructure was working in India, how the space industry has taken off.”

“We, of course, have very high respect for Luxembourg’s own satellite, long standing satellite capacities, but they were obviously also tracking us in that domain, and there were a lot of questions and interest shown in that regard,” he said.

Answering a question about the Free Trade Agreement vis-a-vis agricultural produce and family businesses, he said, “Tariffs are only one part of the issue. Often we get into very complicated issues of standards. You know, particularly you mentioned rice, there being some debates in regard to residues and so on.”

“Sometimes the paperwork involved, the number of things you have to do are very cumbersome. Sometimes, tariff is a barrier, but these rules and regulations are another wall which you have to overcome,” he said, adding, such deals take a long time “precisely because of all these complexities that we have to go through, the details, we have to look at products which we export, then go through the experience, okay, what has been the experience in the last 10, 15 20 years.”

“As an economy, as a country, today, we have become far, far more committed to pushing our products out in the world. In fact, for all the tariff volatility of this year, actually, our exports have done quite well, much better than people expected.”

“In the last few years, we’ve done a number of free trade agreements. Just last month, we signed one with Oman. We finalized one with New Zealand,” he said, but also pointed out that some of them may not be that big, “but believe me, every bit adds something, some set of exporters get new opportunities with every new trade agreement.”

Thanking the Indian community, he said he is proud of the image and reputation that they have built in Luxembourg and urged the members to build on that further to support India as it seeks to take the bilateral relationship to a higher level. “Maybe, you have words of advice to give me as well,” he said, sending peels of laughter.

Published – January 08, 2026 08:32 am IST