India-France negotiations: Scorpene, combat jet engine deals not yet done, missing from final statement

“The negotiators tried to close the two deals in time, so that they could include the lines in the document. But that could not be wrapped up by the summit meeting… It went down to the wire, till the Prime Minister and the French President met and discussed the matter… but could not be closed,” the source said.

A draft version, which had reference to the pact on submarines and the engine, was uploaded “by mistake” on the website of the Ministry of External Affairs, government sources said.

This “unintended error” indicated that the two sides were in the process of including the pact in the text of the joint statement, but they could not complete the negotiations in time.

Officials said that such draft negotiating texts with ambitious goals are a routine matter, and the effort is to close all negotiations. But many times, that doesn’t happen, and they are excluded from the statement. This was such a case.

A source said that nothing has been removed. “This is the text approved by both sides. The same text is on the French website too. It seems some earlier negotiating text got uploaded on our website for a short while. That was not an agreed text in any way,” the source said.

The document titled ‘Horizon 2047: 25th Anniversary of the India-France Strategic Partnership, Towards A Century of India-France Relations’ now states “India and France hail the success of the first Scorpene submarine construction programme (P75 – Kalvari), a model of Make in India and the sharing of naval expertise between companies in the two countries. India and France are ready to explore more ambitious projects to develop the Indian submarine fleet and its performance.”

In the draft statement uploaded by “mistake”, there was also a sentence that read, “They welcome the MoU between Mazagon Dockyard Ltd and Naval Group for the construction of three additional submarines under the P75 programme.” This line is not there in the final statement.

The final joint statement also said: “In line with their outstanding cooperation in military aviation spanning over five decades, India and France welcome the timely delivery of the 36 Rafale ordered by India. In the future, India and France will extend their ground-breaking defence cooperation in advanced aeronautical technologies by supporting the joint development of a combat aircraft engine. They also support industrial cooperation for motorization of heavy-lift helicopters under the Indian Multi Role Helicopter (IMRH) programme with Safran Helicopter Engine, France. To enable progress on the IMRH programme, a Shareholders’ Agreement between Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL), India and Safran Helicopter Engine, France has been concluded for engine development. These ventures are in line with the spirit of trust that prevails between India and France in the sharing and joint development of critical components and technology building blocks, based on the successful Indo-French experience in technology transfer.”

The draft joint statement had a sentence, “A roadmap on this project will be prepared between Safran and DRDO before the end of this year.” This too is not in the final document

India has been in talks with a few global firms including Safran SA for developing aircraft engines for the AMCA Mk II – the futuristic fifth generation advanced medium combat aircraft for the IAF —with full technology transfer.

INS Vagir, the Navy’s fifth Scorpene class submarine, was commissioned in January at the Naval Dockyard in Mumbai. Six Scorpene class submarines are being built in India by the MDL under collaboration with the Naval Group of France.