EU-India summit to endorse ambitious 'action plan'

Wednesday's EU-India summit in New Delhi is expected to endorse a joint 'action plan' following up on decisions taken at last year's summit in The Hague.

The proposals to be discussed at the summit on Wednesday aims to launch a strategic partnership between the EU and India.

“With our ambitious action plan we will be able to jointly work against terrorism and build up a security dialogue,” said European Commission President, Jose Manuel Barroso.

“We will be able to meet common environmental challenges and strengthen our two-way trade and investment."

Barroso also hopes that the initiaitive will be seen as a political declaration, signalling the commitment of the EU and India to enhanced engagement on a wide range of issues.

"Based on our joint values, on our shared commitment to freedom and democracy, we will forge an ever closer relationship," said Barroso.

The EU-India action plan is divided into four main chapters; political, trade and investment, economic and cultural and academic.

And the plan includes action and political dialogue on issues as diverse as human rights, migration, enhanced economic cooperation, and promoting trade.

The summit will assign a high level trade group to promote trade and investment between the EU and India.

Other areas of mutual concern include working towards enhanced cooperation on the Doha Development Agenda and the promotion of India’s participation in Galileo and ITER.

Meanwhile, human rights group Amnesty International is urging the EU to use Wednesday's summit to press India to abolish the death penalty.

"The EU is already engaged in a persistent effort to seek abolition of the death penalty around the world and has for this purpose drawn up policy guidelines towards third countries," said Amnesty EU Director Dick Oosting.

"The EU should take the opportunity of the summit to engage India in this process."

"India wields tremendous influence in Asia and could encourage the abolition of the death penalty across the region if it led by example," he added.

Amnesty has sent a briefing paper to the UK EU EU presidency raising concerns in relation to the use of the death penalty in India.

The paper details cases such as last year's execution of Dhananjoy Chatterjee, the first known execution since 1997.

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