Berlin, June 18: Backed by calls for making India a "privileged partner", the 15-nation European Union (EU) is looking forward to its first ever summit with India in Portugal next week as an opportunity to enable bilateral trade surpass $20 billion and to give their relations a "clearer identity and political consistency."EU's summit with India at Coimbra, near the Portugese capital Lisbon, is being variedly described as the `high point' of EU-India relations and a "very important event" to give "additional impetus" to these ties dating back to the early 1960s.Officials of the European Commission, the executive body of EU, told PTI from Brussels that there is a real possibility to upgrade the relationship between EU and India in all its dimension - political, economic, social and cultural.Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee will be attending the summit on June 28 and will confer with the top EU leadership.The EU will be represented by the Portugal Premier Antonio Guetrres in his capacity as president of the EU council, EC president Romano Prodi, EU high representative for common and foreign and security policy Javier Solana and EC's external relations commissioner Chris Pattern.India becomes the sixth country after the US, Canada,Japan, Russia and China to have a summit with EU. The European parliament in a resolution on EU-India relations late last year wanted India to become a "privileged partner" of the EU in both political and economic terms.Commission officials while expressing optimism that the summit would "encourage growth" in Indo-EU trade, noted that India took only a share of 1.3 per cent of EU's imports, exactly the share of Hong Kong, and even lower than Singapore. China's share of European imports was about six per cent.The bilateral trade volume in 1999 was estimated at about $19 billion and is essentially balanced with India keeping a "small surplus", they said.Officials said India's comparative advantage inInformation Technology should be exploited as a strategy to expand the trade volume. India's export basket - textiles, shoes and agricultural goods - has essentially remained the same for over a decade, they noted.EC officials said there would not be a focus on any specific issue at the Lisbon summit. "It (summit) is a meeting between partners and friends and all issues of common interest will be discussed," they said.The situation in South Asia and nuclear disarmament are expected to be among the political issues to come up at the summit.EU officials indicate that no formal agreement is expected to be signed at the summit, but the two sides would come out with a joint declaration outlining the future contours of Indo-EU cooperation, something on the lines of the Indo-US statement signed during President Bill Clinton's visit to India earlier this year.The frequency of future Indo-EU summits would be highlighted in the declaration with officials optimistic that the meetings at the highest level would now be held at regular intervals.The European parliament is in favour of annual Indo-EU summits and has suggested to the EU to make its political and economic relations with India a ``priority'' of the common foreign and security policy.At the summit, the EU leadership would also be looking forward to an Indian assessment of progress made in accelerating the second generation economic reforms.EU's trade commissioner Pascal Lamy has indicated that the "second generation" economic reforms are the "key factor" for the growth of Indo-EU economic and trade relations." If stable and predicable conditions are created, this will boost EU investment in India to an inflow of technology and know-how," said Lamy. EU investment approvals in 1998 is estimated at about $2.1 billion.
