The second ministerial meeting of the India-EU Trade and Technology Council (TTC) on Friday identified six priority sectors for cooperation, including digitalisation, semiconductors and setting ICT standards, said Henna Virkkunen, the European Commission’s executive vice-president for tech sovereignty, security and democracy.
Virkkunen, who is tasked with combating security threats facing the EU and strengthening internal security, said in an exclusive interview that the 27-member bloc sees India as key partner for technology and security initiatives. Edited excerpts:
What are the key outcomes of the India-EU meetings, including the second ministerial meeting of TTC? I think it was very successful because the EU and India are keen to strengthen cooperation, especially in technology. We identified six fields where we want to cooperate more closely. One is digital services because both sides are very developed in digitalisation of public services. In the EU, we are working on the digital wallet and we will work for interoperability between the two systems, for example with electronic signatures and documents. We will have two billion citizens with interoperable electronic services when it comes to public documents and our businesses, because in Europe we are also working on business wallets for companies.
The second important sector is semiconductors because it’s super important for the EU and India to build up capacities, strengthen value chains and ensure we have strong economic security. AI is something where we want a human-centric approach and make sure technologies are serving citizens and our democracies. We will invest in supercomputers and launch a common project to build up capacity to support research and startups. We will focus on mitigating natural hazards and bioinformatics using supercomputers.
We will work closely on ICT standards and 6G. The sixth important sector is talents and digital skills and we are willing to closely cooperate for a skilled workforce. This is very important for the EU because we have an ageing population and we lack skilled workforce, and we know India has much talent.
How will TTC support the finalisation of a free trade agreement (FTA) within the year? Technologies are a very important part of our cooperation. It’s one of the priorities because it’s so important for our economic growth and our economic security, especially in these times when geopolitical tensions are very high. It’s important to have very trusted partners and this is a field where the EU and India will work very closely together with technologies and digitalisation.
How much are these efforts being driven by the policies of the Trump administration? In the EU, we realised during the Covid pandemic and after Russia started the full-scale war in Ukraine that it’s important [not to be] dependent on any one country in critical sectors. The EU has been building up our capacities in critical sectors. When it comes to technologies, it’s important we have our own knowledge, skills and capacity, but it’s also important to have trusted partners. India is a very important partner for us because it shares similar views. But the US is also an important partner for the EU, because in technology they are very competitive and the biggest companies are often from the US.
How much is the EU’s policy of de-risking supply chains, especially in the context of China, a factor in enhancing ties with India? De-risking is something we started to [focus on] during Covid. Because of the restrictions, many important sources were closed and our manufacturing faced challenges. For example, we realised that in critical medicines, it’s important we have very strong supply chains. Also when it comes to raw materials and semiconductors. I think it was some kind of a wake-up call. Our value chains are very global and if there is some damage somewhere, it can have very strong impacts on our economy. It’s an important part of de-risking that we shouldn’t be dependent on one country, one economy, one source in any critical field.
How will you work with India on semiconductors and are there plans to collaborate with Taiwan, which is a world leader in chips? Taiwan has a big role nowadays but the EU also wants to be strong when it comes to semiconductors and India has a similar approach. India and the EU have their own strengths and we are looking at how we can complement each other, building up talent and skills and in research. We have to look at how we can strengthen the whole supply chain. We already have a MoU on semiconductor cooperation and we are going deeper in certain areas of that.
You are responsible for AI innovation. How do you plan to work with India in this area? AI is very important for both of us. We know India is going to host the AI Summit this year and has taken a leading role in global discussions on trustworthy and human-centric AI. We have quite a similar approach to boosting innovation in this field. We are starting to work more closely with supercomputers and building our skills and capacity together. It’s a very promising area for us — how we can impact the discussions at the global level. We also have to be aware of the risks and make sure of safety and a human-centric approach while boosting innovation.
How can the EU and India work together on emerging security threats, including online? The EU is facing challenges to our security and we are very much under attack. There is a full-scale war in Ukraine, but also our infrastructure is under attack. We are facing sabotage and Russia has been pushing migrants to our borders to destabilise our democracies, and our electoral processes have been under attack. Technology is an important tool when we speak about democracy. We have to make sure technologies are not misused against us and build up our preparedness for different kinds of threats. I think it’s an area where we can have closer coordination with India. President Von der Leyen also spoke about defence industry [cooperation] because EU states are going to invest much more on defence than they used to. There we need partners, and India could be a partner for us.
Does the EU see defence industrial cooperation as a way to wean India away from Russian military hardware? All countries have their own foreign policy and relations, but for the EU, the main threat is Russia. Russia is attacking Ukraine and that is also the reason why we are building up our own defence capacities in the EU.