‘AI will have a huge impact on jobs in India’: Luxembourg Deputy PM

Six years after the virtual summit with PM Modi, how has the relationship changed?

In six years, Covid is gone; it was difficult. I had a Luxembourgish company that was (engaged in) cooling vaccines at that moment. They wanted to open a factory in India, and it was very difficult. And then on the call, Prime Minister Modi told me ‘I will do this’, and the next day it was fixed. I love Indian efficiency. It’s because usually when you have administrative questions, it takes weeks and weeks. But here, it was done in 24 hours.

Since then, we have done a lot in logistics, also in finance. We have also strengthened ties in education, we have hundreds of Indian students in Luxembourg’s universities.

What are the areas of cooperation agreed upon during your conversation with Foreign Minister Jaishankar?

AI, logistics, finance, satellites, space. We have a big Indian community in Luxemburg, we love them. I love Indian food, I love India, and we have successful companies in Luxembourg because of the Indian knowledge.

How does the India-EU Free Trade Agreement impact the bilateral economic relationship between Luxembourg and India?

Now it’s the framework. We need to put elements in the framework. So that’s the reason why I think it is important, since now we have this FTA, to see how we can have new opportunities. Indian companies do not know what are the opportunities in Luxembourg, and Luxembourgish companies do not know what are the opportunities in India now. We need to bring them together. I see some companies in payments and Indian companies which need European licences and see the opportunities to come to Luxembourg. But I’m sure there will be Luxembourgish companies which don’t yet know everything they can do in India, and so I need some time to put them in front of the opportunities to show them.

After President Donald Trump assumed office, there has been a tendency to be protectionist; there are tariff wars going on right now. How do you view these tariff wars?

I think tariff wars, at the end of the day, are a lose-lose situation. There is no winner because someone needs to pay the tariff, and so you just make it more expensive for the consumer, and especially you know when you see this escalation — you do 50, we do 50, you do 60, we do 60. At the end of the day, it’s in fact the middle class consumer who pays the price. Rich people don’t care if it costs 2, 3, or 10 per cent more… It’s the middle class and less fortunate people who pay the price of commercial wars; we destroy jobs, we destroy economies. So it’s a lose-lose situation. So I don’t like commercial wars, and it’s a pity that for some it is for protectionism that they think that tariffs are the new rules. I would love that in the World Trade Organization we are able again to have dialog and constructive work.

You have come here just ahead of the BRICS Summit, which Russian President Vladimir Putin will also attend. This will be his second visit in less than 10 months. What should the Indian government tell the Russian President about the war in Ukraine?

That we won’t rewrite history. So there is one aggressor that is Russia, that is a fact. We can’t, we won’t change history. I had a lot of contacts with President Putin and President (Volodymyr) Zelenskyy at the beginning of the war. I’m happy that your Prime Minister and your Minister of Foreign Affairs went to Moscow and to Kyiv because mostly people visit one, not both, and we need someone to talk to them. But at the end of the day, when we will have to count how many people died, how many have been destroyed, it’s a shame. And if I would still have contact with President Putin, I would tell him why. He gave me explanations at the beginning… I still have no reason why this war should continue. He will have to justify to orphans in 15 years why their father died, and he will have to explain to mothers in two years why their son died for nothing. I hope someone will be able to tell him that it is easier to start the war, than to finish the war. That’s leadership.

Do you think India’s purchase of Russian energy has funded the Russian war machinery?

I don’t know the figures now. If it’s important, not important. The fact is, we should avoid financing the defence industry and letting money come in. But then you need alternatives. If you have alternatives, I would prefer the alternatives than the Russian ones, to be very honest, as long as this war is on. But the fact is, with Russia we had history, we had common interests, we shared the continent, we had common goals, and I’m so sad that everything has been destroyed this last year. Especially for me, my grandmother is Russian, and I feel that even today, when I meet Russian people during holidays, they don’t know if they should say they are Russians or not, and that makes me sad, because everybody needs to be proud about their roots and history. A lot has been destroyed, and it will take time to build it again.

An anti-immigration mood has emerged in the US and in some parts of Europe as well. We just saw AfD win the elections in a state in Germany. You talked about the Indian community in Luxembourg. How do you view this immigration debate from where you are?

The problem is, we just see the negative parts. We have to know that our continent was built with migration… People migrated from Europe to other countries when there was not enough food, when there were wars. So we also looked for a better future… You have subjectivity and objectivity. Objectivity is the fact that we need migration, but we need regulated migration. Subjectivity would be that you say we don’t control migration, so it is important to have borders that are functioning, mechanisms that are functioning, and also countries taking back the people that are not allowed to stay. And this is exactly what makes AfD and other parties strong. It’s this subjective feeling of insecurity, migration, injustice, uncertainty, housing, jobs, future, all these questions where, in fact, we have no answer… When I read the papers today, all the Democrats will tell you, oh, this is such a shame, it’s an attack on democracy, the elections in Germany. No, it was an election… It’s the people who have chosen, and we need, instead of complaining and blaming them, to find answers to their questions. If we don’t find them, they will continue, because the difference between me and the populist is that I often have the most complicated answer to the easiest question, and the populist has the easiest answer to the most complicated question. But if his solution is right or not, nobody will complain. So that’s the fact. We fact-check to tell this is not possible, and to be honest. But we should not blame the people. We should blame ourselves.

Cooperation in fintech is a major topic of conversation in India and Luxembourg. What is the next step?

I think we are working a lot. If it’s blockchain, if it’s all these different things that we had, there is cryptocurrency. We could have all the spectrum of all what is in fintech. But for me, what is important is that we have trust, because… trust is most important, especially in finance. If people lose trust, they won’t trust.. and this is the biggest thing. But the whole AI is a challenge. I don’t want to be negative, but I’m sure AI will have a huge impact on jobs too in India. A huge, huge impact. So it is important to be ready for this AI revolution, which will change our lives in 10 or 15 years. It doesn’t mean that we need to stop it, but we need to have a legal framework because if we don’t have a legal framework, I don’t want afterwards that my constituency people are convinced by AI fake videos, by fake information… they’ve gotten advice from an AI doctor that they want. Human contact is still the basis of trust and relations. We should not forget that.