Now that the French foreign minister Laurent Fabius is paying a two-day official visit to India (30 June-1 July), it is high time that the new Indian government of Prime Minister Narendra Modi drastically changes the rules of engagement with this important P5 western power.
The Modi government should take the cue from Fabius’ designation. His full designation is Minister of Foreign Affairs and International Development of France.
India’s development, particularly in the core infrastructure areas, needs to be the single most important agenda of Modi’s foreign policy and Indian government must ask the minister of International Development of France what the French government can do to ensure speedier development of India.
If one looks at concrete deliverables, India is more useful to France while France’s utility to India is still to be seen.
What India needs from France is top end technology and French investments in India’s mega infrastructure projects like the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor, a $ 90 billion corridor of opportunities. But one has not seen much movement from the French in this regard.
French foreign minister Laurent Fabius. AFP.
It is time for the Modi government to redefine rules of engagement with all major foreign powers and make this beginning with France.
India has already offered to France two mega projects which together should be worth at least $40 billion if implemented in full. These are: (i) the MMRCA (Medium Multi Role Combat Aircraft) deal involving 126 fighter aircraft; and (ii) the six units of a nuclear power plant at Jaitapur in Maharashtra with a combined capacity of 9900 mw. Each project’s full cost currently is $20 billion which will inevitably be pushed up with the passage of time.
Strangely, the previous UPA government simply gave away these projects to the French (with in-principle approval) without any quid pro quo.
Both the mega projects are not even on drawing board stage and continue to remain in a limbo for different reasons.
Prime Minister Modi must dish out to the French his favourite one-liner – “No red tape, only red carpet” – but tell them that New Delhi expects Paris also to return the favour in double quick time.
It was way back in January 2012 when India had selected French aviation major Dassault for procurement of 126 MMRCA for the Indian Air Force. But the protracted commercial negotiations are still continuing. It won’t be before three months at least when these negotiations are concluded.
The reason for the delay is that the French are reluctant to transfer high technology to the Indians. Their argument is that this technology is too sensitive and complicated for the Indians to handle!
The Jaitapur project too has its own issues, apart from protests by environmentalists and anti-nuclear activists from the Indian point of view and concerns about the Indian nuclear liability laws from the French viewpoint.
Besides, from India’s point of view, there are twin major concerns which are yet to be addressed. First, the EPR (European Pressurized Reactor) technology being mooted for the Jaitapur project is untried and untested. Not a single nuclear reactor of this type (EPR) is operational anywhere in the world, not even in France!
Another Indian concern relates to per unit cost of electricity generated from Jaitapur. Though the two sides are nowhere near the stage of commercial negotiations over the Jaitapur project, the preliminary talks have revealed that these costs are very high and economically unviable. If these twin red flags are not removed at the earliest there is a high probability that Jaitapur too may go the Enron way.
These are the issues that the Modi government would be grappling with in its engagement with France.
A stark ground reality is that the bilateral trade between India and France is nowhere close to its target of 12 billion euros (slightly more than $16 billion) by 2015. In fact, the bilateral trade declined by 3.71 percent in the first ten months of 2012. This is despite the fact that there are more than 750 French companies currently operating in India and France is ninth largest investor in India and India is 13th largest investor in France. This is also despite the fact that political relations between the two sides have been very good since the establishment of strategic partnership way back in 1998.
Surely, Fabius will have a plateful of agenda during his talks with the Indian leadership, apart from France’s uni-focal emphasis on the issue of French marines though the Indian government has repeatedly told Paris that the matter is sub-judice and there is little that the Indian government can do about it.
Fabius will be meeting Prime Minister Modi and Arun Jaitley who is currently holding two important portfolios – finance and defence. He will be holding delegation-level talks with External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj and will also be visiting Mumbai along with his delegation.
Clearly, Fabius will be exploring business opportunities in India for his country. But the question is: what kind of leverage the Modi government can pull off from France for development of India?
The writer is a Firstpost columnist and a strategic analyst who tweets @Kishkindha
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