Kallas: “EU‑India deal also serves security goals, including support for Ukraine”

Brussels – Free trade as a step toward a fully geopolitical bilateral cooperation, aimed at forging new international relations in light of the new course taken by Trump’s United States, and also with an anti‑Russia angle. The EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Kaja Kallas, is trying to use the trade agreement between the European Union and India as a first step toward a new diplomatic chapter to be deployed on a broad scale. “The partnership with India could also be used to leverage key Common Security and Defence Policy goals, like support for Ukraine,” she said at the annual conference of the European Defence Agency (EDA).

 The High Representative’s statements are a clear challenge to the Russian Federation and its president, Vladimir Putin. Asking India to support Kyiv automatically means taking sides against Moscow. It remains to be seen whether and to what extent the New Delhi government will want to forge this type of alliance with the EU, but for Kallas, it is necessary to at least try, for reasons of alliances and global balance.

“It has become painfully clear that Russia will remain a major security threat for the long term,” she warned, addressing the audience at the EDA conference. “China, too, remains a long-term challenge,” as already highlighted in the White Paper on Defence. “China supports Russia’s war against Ukraine,” Kallas continued, glossing over regional issues. In the South China Sea, the Paracel Islands—controlled by Beijing since 1974—are claimed by both Taiwan and Vietnam, while the People’s Republic and the Philippines are contesting the Spratly Islands, which fall within Manila’s exclusive economic zone according to Philippine claims disputed by China.

In this territorial standoff, the border dispute between China and India remains unresolved. Around 120,000 square kilometres of land claimed by both countries remain to be defined along a 3,400‑kilometer frontier that has yet to be demarcated. In the west, Beijing controls Aksai Chin, claimed by India as part of Kashmir, while in the south, New Delhi controls and administers Arunachal Pradesh, claimed by China as part of the Tibetan Autonomous Region. Kallas’s idea of using the EU-India trade agreement for security and defence risks triggering a chain reaction due to alliances, historical claims, and political and economic interests in an area at the centre of competing claims and disputes.