'Alles gut!': New Delhi, Berlin eager to bolster ties

Visitors to India's capital in recent days were scarcely able to avoid the Federal Chancellor's gaze, as posters with his likeness lined many of New Delhi's major streets. On Friday, Germany's Chancellor Olaf Scholz traveled to India with several senior ministers of his cabinet and a large business delegation to promote closer cooperation with the world's most populous nation.

Berlin courts India

In the end, the two nations reached 27 agreements aiming to enhance cooperation in areas such as research, renewables, and defense. Scholz also pushed to accelerate talks on a free trade agreement that India and the European Union (EU) have been negotiating for 17 years.

"After long years of negotiations, the time has come to bring this to an end," Scholz said after talks in New Delhi.

His government is also seeking to attract skilled workers from India. An estimated 140,000 already live and work in Germany, but Scholz is looking to draw in even more, especially for the IT and healthcare sectors.

In India, about 1 million people enter the labor force every month. Germany, meanwhile, is desperately short of skilled workers.

Economic talks also centered around investments, as Germany seeks to diversify its portfolio given recent political developments in China. India a good alternative. Following a meeting with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, Scholz stated that India was "an anchor of stability in South Asia."

India is a global player full of potential

Expert observers say that Germany has reassessed its position on India, as evidenced by the government's newly released strategic document Focus on India.

While Germany has assumed a comparatively defensive posture toward China, the strategic document on India reads like an ode to pragmatism. Critical remarks on India's burgeoning nationalism are relegated to the side notes, while questions on how to make the best use of closer ties take center stage.

India's economic projections are impressive: If growth remains stable, the country could replace Germany as the world's third-largest economy by 2030. While the German government sees promising potential in this forecast, it's unclear how the German economy will respond.

Investments in neighboring China are still much higher. "In the end, they will need both: The deep interest in China will remain the same, and India will become an increasingly interesting player," said Christian Kastrop, managing partner of the Berlin think tank forum Global Solution Initiative.

"Players like India are not only interesting to Germany from an economic perspective, but also from a political one," he added.

The giant of the Indo-Pacific region has long cast itself as the voice of the so-called Global South in encounters with Western representatives. India is one of the original BRICS members, which alongside Brazil, Russia, China and South Africa has now come to newly incorporate Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran and the UAE.

In addition, India is also a G20 member, an intergovernmental forum which brings together the world's 20 largest economies. And like Germany, Japan and Brazil, the country is making a bid to secure a permanent seat on the UN Security Council.

Scholz and Modi are pragmatists

Prime Minister Modi keeps good relations with countries that others have stopped talking to — like Russia. He values keeping his country neutral, and has so far eschewed condemning Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine. Just days before meeting Scholz in New Delhi, Modi attended a BRICS summit in Russia's Kazan, where he was seen embracing Russian President Vladimir Putin — not for the first time.

Scholz has taken this all in stride, perhaps, because he hopes Modi's diplomatic balancing act will prove useful. The Indian head of government has repeatedly offered himself as a mediator to help end the war.

"It is good that a country like India is determined to help bring things ahead," Scholz said in response to Modi's proposal, adding that India could "really play a role."

"This war must finally come to an end," he stated, as Modi stood beside him, nodding.

The German Chancellor also warned against seeing the growing importance and differing views of countries from the Global South as problematic. Instead, he said Germany, Europe and so-called industrialized nations had to adjust to the fact that countries like India, South Africa or Brazil will be tomorrow's partners.

"We need to prepare that partnership today," he added.

Military cooperation as a sign of trust

In New Delhi, those words were well-received. "India wants to be Germany's partner of choice," Ummu Salma Bava from the Center for European Studies at the Jawaharlal Nehru University told DW. She added that India had high hopes for a German partnership, especially when it came to the economy and defense.  

The results of Friday's intergovernmental consultations seemed to reflect that, with the agreements signed including an intelligence arrangement that permits authorities and businesses to exchange sensitive information. Germany and India also expressed their intent to expand their military cooperation.

India needs more modern weapons, in order to demonstrate its defense capabilites vis-a-vis China, which is revamping is own military at a fast clip. To better protect essential trade corridors in the Indo-Pacific, India wants to make sure it can keep pace.

So far, India has procured most of its weaponry from Russia, but New Delhi is now looking to reduce that depedency. Germany has offered to help with this, and it currently planning to build six new submarines for India's navy.

"Germany is their preferred partner," so Ummu Salva Bava.

Strict national laws have long held Berlin back from exporting sensitive military technology. The fact that the country is now open to engaging in such close cooperation is not only a big (economic) deal, it's also a vote of confidence for these bilateral ties.

Or, as Modi put it at the press meeting with Scholz, "it's all good." Except, he said it in German: "Alles gut!"

This article was originally published in German.