India, EU hold first-ever security, defence consultations

In a significant move, India and the European Union have discussed increasing maritime security cooperation and the prospect of co-development and co-production of defence equipment.

The deliberations took place at the first-ever India-EU Security and Defence Consultations held in Brussels pursuant to a decision taken at the India-EU summit in July 2020.

The Indian Embassy in the Belgium capital said India's participation in Permanent Structured Cooperation (PESCO) also figured in the talks on Friday.

It said the wide-ranging discussions on Friday covered the evolving security situation in Europe, India's neighbourhood and the Indo-Pacific.

PESCO is a part of the EU's security and defence policy. Its establishment in December 2017 has raised cooperation on defence among the participating EU member states to a new level.

The embassy said the two sides noted a number of positive developments in the area of security and defence cooperation in recent years, including the establishment of a regular maritime security dialogue.

''During the consultations, the two sides also discussed various means of increasing India-EU cooperation on maritime security, implementation of the European code of conduct on arms export to India's neighbourhood, cooperation in co-development and co-production of defence equipment, including India's participation in PESCO,'' it said in a statement.

''Both sides agreed to increase India-EU defence and security cooperation as an important pillar of the bilateral strategic relations,'' it said.

The talks took place under the shadow of the crisis in Ukraine.

(This story has not been edited by Devdiscourse staff and is auto-generated from a syndicated feed.)