India and EU: An Insider's View

By Bhaswati Mukherjee

"A popular myth maintains that Indo-EU relations are best viewed through the British prism. This disregards the historical evidence of Alexander’s march to India and the Roman Empire’s trade with India. In more recent times cultural icons like Satyajit Ray have been celebrated more in Paris than elsewhere. India’s trade with EU, especially in defence items, is anchored to a greater extent in the continent rather than across the channel.

Brexit is now going to take away that British prism.

A fresh, and in many ways a profound new Indo-EU relationship is about to emerge. Bhaswati Mukherjee’s book “India and EU: An Insider’s View” is timely. It traces the past, explains the present state of relationship in all its complexity and looks into the crystal ball. This is an objective assessment by a highly regarded professional of the successes as also the wrinkles of the past in the relationship as well as the practical steps for a more vigorous Indo-EU future.

Written with great fluency “India and EU-An Insider’s view” fascinates with its vignettes, making it a unique and must-read book."

• Language: English
• Publisher: VIJ Books (India) Pty Ltd
• Release date: Oct 2, 2018
• ISBN: 9788193759127

Bhaswati Mukherjee

A career foreign service officer, Bhaswati Mukherjee has a well deserved reputation as one of the most experienced diplomats on Indo-EU relations. She has headed, for the longest time ever, the Indian Foreign Ministry’s department specialising in the EU affairs. During this period she piloted institutional linkages like annual Indo-EU Summits to give greater gravitas and stability to the relationship. In a distinguished career of over 38 years, she has been the Indian Ambassador to The Netherlands as well as India’s Permanent Representative to UNESCO in Paris. Her international expertise was honed by her earlier work at India’s Permanent Mission to the UN in New York and a 6-year tenure with the UN Human Rights Commission and the first High Commissioner for Human Rights in Geneva. Her public interface started young. Being elected as the President of Miranda College’s Student’s Union gave her the confidence to pursue her passion for human rights and women’s rights and later, disarmament and strategic issues as well as heritage and culture. Bhaswati Mukherjee is a trained vocalist. An excellent public speaker, she is an important voice in the Indian media on foreign policy and strategic affairs."

Book preview

Chapter 1

India EU – A Complex and Dialectical

Relationship

Section 1: How did Europe meet India?

Map 1: Ancient Spice Route

(Source: Ancient Spice Route, The Spice that built Venice, Jack Turner, Smithsonian Journeys Quarterly, November 2nd, 2015)

Throughout millennia, India has been at the intersection of historic maritime routes, radiating across the Western and Eastern reaches of the Indian Ocean. The Indian Peninsula lies at the centre of these routes, dominating the Indian Ocean. The South-West and South- East monsoon winds determined shipping and trade patterns. Ports on the Indian coastline were at the very centre of this flourishing international trade. Pepper, cloves, cardamom and nutmeg brought the world to India- to its historic Malabar Coast, known as Spice Coast. Fishermen, sailors and merchants travelled the waters of the Indian Ocean linking the world’s earliest civilisation from Africa to East Asia in a complex web of relationships. Later these spices would bring the ships of the Dutch East India Company followed by the French, the Portuguese and the English in search of these valued condiments. The trading posts established by the Europeans ultimately led to India’s colonisation for almost 200 years by the United Kingdom.

Map 2: Trade Routes in the Indian Ocean

The first ‘European’ who reached India, as officially chronicled, dates back to 326 B.C. He was Alexander of Macedonia who reached the banks of the great river Indus in search of empire. Many followed him and after 1500, as a result of the quest for spices and its riches, India became the central focus of European explorers, traders and colonizers. In the year 1500, India accounted for 24.5% of global Gross Domestic Product (GDP). Until 1800, India accounted for 27% of global GDP. In the 1850s, after the Opium Wars¹, European share of global GDP reached 24.1%. In 1947, after Independence, India’s share of global GDP had plummeted to 3% (Maddison, 2003).

The search for the wealth and prosperity of India led to the discovery of the Americas by Christopher Columbus in 1492. Long after the decline of the Roman Empire’s sea-borne trade with India, the Portuguese were the first Europeans to seek the famous Spice Route. The closing of the traditional trade routes in West Asia by the Ottoman Empire and rivalry with the different Italian states, lent urgency to Portugal’s search for an alternate sea route to India. Vasco da Gama, the famous Portuguese sailor, became the first European to re-establish direct trade links with India after the decline of the Roman Empire. He was the first to arrive by the Cape of Good Hope (1497–1499). The Portuguese were followed by other colonial powers, notably the Dutch, the French and the British. Dutch footprints in Kerala go back 400 years with the establishment of the Dutch East India Company in 1592. Admiral Van der Hagen led the first Dutch delegation and reached the shores of Kerala. Kochi became a major trading centre for the Dutch in South India. Subsequently, the English established four main settlements – at Madras (now Chennai), at Fort St. George in Calcutta (now Kolkata) in Fort William, in Surat and in Bombay (now Mumbai). Until the British established colonial supremacy, they were competing with the other European powers to control the lucrative spice trade with India.

The onerous burden of colonialism encouraged the rise of nationalism, shaping India’s struggle for independence. European values and related liberal structures helped to shape India’s pluralistic democracy and its Constitution, based on the principles of secularism, democracy, rule of law and equality. As one of India’s most erudite Prime Ministers, Dr. Manmohan Singh² (2005) stated, The Founding Fathers of our Republic were greatly influenced by the ideas associated with the age of Enlightenment in Europe. Our Constitution remains a testimony to the enduring interplay between what is essentially Indian and what is very British in our intellectual heritage.

Section 2: Dialectics in Operation: Commonalities and Differences

India EU relations officially date back to the early 1960s. India’s leadership from Independence had a clear perspective on building strong relations with the former European Economic Community (EEC), apart from developing strong bilateral relations with individual EU Member States. The Ambassador of Netherlands was one of only three Western Ambassadors present on 15th August, 1947, when India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru made his famous ‘Tryst with Destiny’³ speech. India was among the first to establish diplomatic relations with the EEC in 1962. The grouping subsequently grew from a common market to a common currency and from a Community to a Union, with many attributes of sovereignty transferred to it from Member States, particularly after the Lisbon Treaty. Simultaneously, India’s engagement with the EU also grew commensurately, complementing and supplementing bilateral relations with EU Member States, notably with key EU countries from ‘Old Europe’- France and Germany.

Contrary to popular perception within the EU, encouraged by the UK, India never looked at its relations with the EU through the prism of its bilateral relationship with its former colonizer, the United Kingdom. India’s engagement with Europe remains a separate and important pillar of its foreign policy. It included strong bilateral relations especially with the larger EU Member States, as well as a separate institutional relationship with Brussels. This is shaping India’s approach to EU after Brexit.

With the Cold War and its long shadow on Europe, divided into two bitter and adversarial blocs, East and West, the Indian leadership along with major developing countries evolved the non aligned doctrine leading to the establishment of Non Alignment⁴. With the doctrine of MAD (Mutual Assured Destruction)⁵ becoming the war cry of the protagonists of the Cold War, Non Alignment appeared to be the only ‘mantra’⁶ to save developing countries from being pressured to join military alliances and get involved in a limited nuclear exchange between East and West. To India, disappointed by the lukewarm Western response to India’s appeal for support and help after the Chinese aggression in 1962⁷, Non Alignment became a new ideology to preserve independence and an independent foreign policy in a world divided into blocs. This would change after the end of the Cold War. Jean Luc Racine (2017), a key French political strategist on Asia, points out: The spirit of Non Alignment was created by India’s leadership in a bipolar world. Now India has a choice to choose multiple partners in a multi-polar world.

Although separated widely by geography as well as history, there are striking parallels in the separate journeys of EU and India. This phenomenon naturally impacts the relationship. Both have gone through a unique process of institution building to balance the rights of their citizens with the need for cohesion; they represent the two largest democracies in the world (if one counts the EU as a single member State even after Brexit); while culturally and linguistically they are among the most diverse regions on the planet. Relations which were once focussed on trade and development now encompass the political and security environment, scientific and technological development, climate change and other interests in an increasingly globalised world. Business and trade relations continue to have the highest priority. This common commitment to democracy and rule of law, to the market economy and to inclusive development which promotes the welfare of all segments of society through progressive public policy, is a defining factor in India EU relations.

According to Jaffrelot and Sidhu in ‘Does Europe Matter to India’ (2009), in post-Cold War Europe, the India EU connection was supposedly based on three common characteristics: democracy, diversity and internal differences (on issues ranging from governance models, market economy, affirmative action for minorities, immigration, terrorism and their respective roles in an emerging world order). Yet as Acharya and other authors (2004) note, despite these common traits and a long historical connection, Europe has only recently rediscovered India. The moot question is when will India rediscover Europe? Does India look at the EU as a significant actor or prefers the bilateral approach? Is it a dialectical relationship? How does the USA impact these relations? Jean Luc Racine (2004) makes a cynical assessment about the EU-India-US triangular relationship. He acknowledges: Some will deride Europe as a ‘dowdy old lady’, known ‘for over 400 years, but with no excitement, no passion’ left. The romance is with America, even if it is ‘tough love’, because the US was more open to migrants and is more prone to change the world. A serious effort to analyze whether Europe matters to India and vice versa and how to invigorate and strengthen what should be a mutually beneficial and dynamic strategic partnership is a key objective of this book.

What adds complexity to this task is that conceptually India, post 1947, is regarded as a ‘modern state’, with the attributes of sovereignty, territoriality and raison d’état (justification of sovereignty). In contrast, the EU is considered to be a ‘post modern intra state entity’ which does not emphasize sovereignty, separation of domestic and foreign affairs, and which, after Schengen, increasingly regards borders as irrelevant. It is generally considered that the EU as a ‘post modern actor’ does not base its foreign policy on balance of power and zero sum logic. Kagan (2003) has gone to the extent of arguing: The normative lens with which the Union views the world is predicated upon its weakness. The Union wishes to promote a Kantian world because of the weakness of its foreign policy instruments and its incoherent foreign policy apparatus, unable to confront decisively the real threats and challenges it faces. While this may be an unfair criticism of the manner in which the EU is confronting its external challenges, there is no doubt that its inability to develop and implement a coherent and strong Common Foreign and Security Policy (CFSP) has sent wrong signals to its strategic partners, including India. These divergent approaches in addressing security issues represent a major challenge.

Unlike the EU, India does not, as noted by Bendiek and Wagner (2008) believe in promoting its secular, pluralistic and democratic ideology to other states. India does not favour regime change to promote democracy or the RTP (Responsibility to Protect)⁸. In addition, India has struggled to engage with an over institutionalized and over bureaucratised establishment in Brussels which often gives conflicting and confusing signals on key issues relevant to the relationship.

Nathalie Tocci in ‘Profiling Normative Foreign Policy: the EU and its Global Partners’ (2008) has noted that the EU has traditionally been considered as a distinctly ‘different’ type of international actor. The EU has been described as a civilian power, a soft power and now increasingly as a normative power in international relations. These concepts are interlinked and they are the result of the fundamentally different ways in which the Union views the world, as distinguished from India’s global vision. The EU has been described as a foreign policy actor intent on shaping, instilling, diffusing and normalizing rules and values in international affairs through non- coercive means. In doing so, many cite the Lisbon Treaty (Article III- 193 (1), Article 1-2 and 1-2)⁹ which states that in international affairs, the EU would be guided by and would seek to promote the values on which the Union is founded, including democracy, human rights, fundamental freedoms and rule of law. This is an approach quite different from how India engages with the world. India does not seek to export the principles enshrined in its Constitution to the outside world. Jaffrelot (2004) notes: The difference between the conceptual outlook of India and the EU might also explain the inherent discomfiture of a modern India in engaging with a post modern entity like the EU. In contrast, India is more comfortable in dealing with the individual nation states that constitute the EU, particularly the bigger states, than the collective Union.

In this dialectical quest to rediscover each other, the EU needs to assert itself in political, military, cultural, social and economic terms, to avoid becoming marginalized and to regain international attention. The paradox is that while Europe as a geopolitical space is losing its centrality, the EU as an institution is getting more attention. Europe was slow to accept that as a region it had, with the end of the Cold War, lost its centrality in world politics, its strategic importance for the USA and for post Soviet Russia. These developments, along with the rise of India and China, made Europe more vulnerable. Whether European States, leaders and institutions have fully understood the scope of this shift and the risks that it carries is questionable. As Heisbourg (2009) says: For the EU, the long term trends of global security makes it indispensable to transform what is still seen as a potential security actor into reality, because ‘the weight of not being’ is simply unbearable.

Section 3: The Making of the European Economic Community

Map 3: Post World War I Europe

(Source: Europe, 1914 – Lines Drawn, West Point, Department of History, Campaign Atlas to the Great War)

Map 4: Europe, Post World War II

(Source: www.u-s-history.com)

The coming together of France and Germany, bitter adversaries in World War II, so soon after the end of such a bitter war which had devastated Europe, in order to establish the European Economic Community (EEC) was a historical event which marked a watershed in the history of the past century. Unlike the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, based on the flawed principle of punishing the vanquished and rewarding the victors, leading to World War II, the EEC was established on the principle of sovereign equality. It brought peace and united Europe. It has often been held up as an example of establishing institutions based on mutual commercial and economic interests in order to establish lasting peace. One of the visionaries on the French side was Robert Schuman¹⁰ who as early as 1950 had a clear perspective of the future direction of Europe.

Schuman Declaration of 9th May 1950

(at the historic Salon de l’ horloge, Quai d’ Orsay in

Versailles)

World peace cannot be safeguarded without the making of creative efforts proportionate to the dangers which threaten it. The contribution which an organised and living Europe can bring to civilisation is indispensable to the maintenance of peaceful relations. In taking upon herself for more than 20 years, the role of champion of a united Europe, France has always had as her essential aim the service of peace. A united Europe was not achieved and we had war. Europe will not be made all at once, or according to a single plan. It will be built through concrete achievements which first create a de facto solidarity. The coming together of the nations of Europe requires the elimination of the age-old opposition of France and Germany. Any action taken must in the first place concern these two countries. With this aim in view, the French Government proposes that action be taken immediately on one limited but decisive point: It proposes that Franco-German production of coal and steel as a whole be placed under a common High Authority, within the framework of an organisation open to the participation of the other countries of Europe.

Thus was born ‘The European Entity’ which became subsequently an association of almost all European states. These developments, following World War II and the evolution of the EEC into the EU are one of the most fascinating political narratives of the 20th century. It had its own implications for India. So soon after Independence in 1947, before India could develop relations with Europe as a continent, India had to decide on a multi-dimensional relationship with a new economic entity, the EEC. With the evolution of the EC (Economic Commission) and the new and unique intra state entity known as the EU, India had to develop new foreign policy approaches to cope with these changes. How to evaluate and decide on balancing the bilateral with a new intra-regional organization, poorly understood and difficult to comprehend in the global polity of the 1950s, was a major challenge to India’s nascent foreign policy establishment.

In 1947, having missed out on the Industrial Revolution due to colonialism and with very low literacy and maternal morbidity rates, India had to leapfrog into the 20th century. It had no industrial base and most of her future developing country partners were still under colonial rule. India had to redefine its relations with the rest of the world after Independence. The greatest challenge was to find new partners necessary for quick and robust growth. India’s political leadership had to take into account the new political and strategic repositioning in the world which was gradually witnessing the beginning of the Cold War and the growth of new military alliances, NATO¹¹ and Warsaw Pact¹². Given India’s economic and commercial imperatives, what was required was a dynamic vision of development. The latter was based on some fundamental principles, including recognition of the need to maintain friendly relations with all countries, to push for the pacific resolution of conflicts, to insist upon the equality of state sovereignties and to work for freedom of thought and action and equity in the conduct of international affairs. This also led to the birth of the Non Aligned Movement. Being non-aligned at that time meant remaining independent, not neutral.

According to Cyril Berthod (2011): The Indian reaction to different phases of the European re-construction was mixed. In 1957, India was of the view that the project of the common European Market was a new form of protectionism among European countries. Its sole aim appeared to be to agree on preferential tariffs. With the contours of the Cold War emerging and the emergence of military alliances and blocs, India did not fully understand or appreciate the dynamics of European construction and its willingness to integrate ‘from below’ (Berthod, 2011), through the actions of sovereign states. India’s own Constitution which was federal and democratic was constructed ‘from above’ (Berthod, 2011), through the willingness of the Central Government to unify the different provinces and princely states. In 1962, Jawaharlal Nehru, the Indian PM took the initiative to establish a diplomatic mission in Brussels, a gesture that signified the openness to new post-colonial multilateral and egalitarian relations between the two entities. This decision reflected two aims of the Indian Government in the 1960s: to ensure better access for its products to the Community market and to contribute to the CEE’s (Central and Eastern Europe) gradual recognition of the emerging Indian market.

India, which was facing its own developmental issues at that time, tried to quickly establish institutionalized cooperation with the EEC. The first cooperation agreement between the EEC and India was signed in 1973. It envisaged the development and diversification of commercial exchanges. A mixed Commission, charged with identifying sectors of privileged cooperation were put into place in Brussels within the framework of this agreement. The Agreement of 1973 was replaced by another more complete agreement in 1981 that no longer referred solely to commerce, but to a broader economic cooperation. With the economic structural reforms¹³ launched in India under Prime Minister Narasimha Rao, relations between India and the EU gained momentum. This step also signalled the emergence of a profound transformation in the economic and commercial relationship between India and the EU.

Endnotes

1    During the colonial period, the British forced Indian farmers to switch from food crops to opium as the main crop resulting in famine in India. The opium was forcibly sold to the Chinese, thus enslaving a whole generation of Chinese, to pay for Chinese tea which was in great demand in Europe.

2    Manmohan Singh became the Thirteenth Prime Minister of India (2004-2014) and the only Prime Minister after Jawaharlal Nehru to enjoy two consecutive full five-year terms. He is a member of the Indian National Congress. Manmohan Singh was the mastermind behind the economic liberalization in India as Finance Minister in the Narasimha Rao Government from 1991 to 1996. He is an outstanding and globally renowned economist. He was the Governor of the Reserve Bank of India from 1982 to 1985. He was also instrumental in the signing of the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal in 2008.

3    The iconic speech that was delivered by the India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru in the Parliament to the Indian Constituent Assembly, on the eve of India’s Independence, at midnight on 14th August 1947.

4    The Non Aligned Movement was formed during the Cold War, as an organization of States that did not seek to formally align themselves with either the United States or the Soviet Union, but sought to remain independent of blocs. This should not be equated to neutrality.

5    Mutual Assured Destruction began to emerge at the end of the Kennedy Administration. MAD reflects the idea that one’s population could best be protected by leaving it vulnerable, so long as the other side faced comparable vulnerabilities. Destruction is assured for both sides in case one commences destruction. In short: whoever shoots first dies second.

6    Mantra, a Sanskrit word, means a sound, a certain utterance or a syllable believed by practitioners to have psychological and spiritual powers.

7    The Sino-Indian conflict in 1962 was a war provoked by China against India. On 20th October 1962, the People’s Liberation Army (PLA) invaded Ladakh and crossed the McMahon Line, which is the international boundary between China and India. The cause of the war was a dispute over the sovereignty of the widely separated Aksai Chin and Arunachal Pradesh border regions. Aksai Chin, claimed by India to belong to Kashmir and by China to be part of Xinjiang, contains an important road link that connects the Chinese regions of Tibet and Xinjiang. China was determined to annex Aksai Chin. Tensions had increased after Chinese imposition of its rule in Tibet, resulting in the Dalai Lama fleeing to India in March, 1959. The Indian Army was caught by surprise. About 10,000 Indian soldiers had to confront more than 80,000 well armed Chinese soldiers. The war ended when China declared a unilateral ceasefire on 20th November, 1962. It however did not vacate much of the territory that it had illegally invaded, including Aksai Chin. This was a major loss of territory for India which it has never regained. Even today, the Chinese claim sovereignty over parts of India’s North East including Arunachal Pradesh.

8    The Responsibility to Protect doctrine is the enabling principle that first obligates individual states and then the international community to protect populations from genocide, war crimes, ethnic cleansing and crimes against humanity. R2P, as it is commonly known, is a set of principles based on the idea that sovereignty is not a privilege, but a responsibility. R2P was endorsed at the 2005 World Summit and then re-affirmed in 2006 by the U.N. with reservations by many States. RTP was a response to the genocide and atrocities in Rwanda and Srebrencia. It was intended to prevent the recurrence of such mass atrocities. Subsequently, the French politician Bernard Kouchner described it as humanitarian intervention. This was manipulated so that later events confirmed the worst fears of some sceptics. The Brazilian proposal of ‘Responsibility while Protecting’ is designed to minimize, if not entirely preclude, the collateral damage that the protection of civilians entails.

9    As numbered in the Lisbon Treaty.

10  Robert Schuman (1886-1963) was a French statesman and one of the founding fathers of the European Communities. In a Declaration on 9th May 1950 as Foreign Minister of France, he launched the ‘Schuman Plan’ proposing a supranational Community for coal and steel, based on a new European legal order. It led to the creation in 1951 of the European Coal and Steel Community, which was the precursor of the European Economic Community in 1956 and the European Union in 1993. An internationalist by experience and conviction, Schuman was a visionary and a realist. His speeches and writings have had a lasting influence on European integration. ‘Europe Day’ celebrated on 9th May commemorates Schuman’s 1950 Declaration.

11  NATO or North Atlantic Treaty Organization is an alliance of countries from Europe and North America marking the division of global polity into blocs and the beginning of the Cold War. Based on hostility to the then USSR and to communism, it linked Europe with USA in the fields of defence and security and the conduct of crisis-management operations.

12  The Warsaw Treaty Organization (also known as the Warsaw Pact) was a political and military alliance established on May 14th, 1955 between the Soviet Union and several Eastern European countries. The Soviet Union formed this alliance as a counterbalance to NATO.

13  These economic reforms, introduced in India in July 1991 presented a mixture of macroeconomic stabilization and structural adjustment, guided by short-term and long-term objectives. Stabilization was necessary in the short run to restore balance of payments equilibrium and to control inflation. At the same time changing the structure of institutions themselves through reforms was equally important from long term point of view. The new Government moved urgently to implement a programme of macroeconomic stabilization through fiscal correction. Structural reforms were also initiated in trade, industry and the public sector.

Chapter 2

EU as an Intra State Entity

The European Union is an intra-State entity where, in certain key areas, sovereignty has been ceded to it by Member States. The supranational institutions of the European Union, in the post-Lisbon Treaty era, are an intergovernmental sui generis political and legal entity. Under international law, sovereign legitimacy is in the national capitals of the Member States of the European Union. The institutions of the European Union derive their authority based upon sovereign rights delegated by Member States to Brussels. On trade negotiations, the EU is led by the Commission Representatives while Member States collectively take positions which are negotiated by the Representative of the Commission. Within the UN, the EU has faced difficulties in finding universal acceptance of the above by several Member States including the U.S.A. and China.

Not every European country is an EU Member. Switzerland, Norway, Andorra and Liechtenstein remain outside the Union. Turkey, a NATO Member with a huge Muslim majority population, remains an uneasy question mark for the future. Can a majority Muslim country ever be an EU Member? Can Europe afford Turkey drifting eastwards? The aftermath of the abortive coup in Turkey in 2016 with calls to bring back the death penalty has cast a new and long shadow over Turkey’s candidature to the EU. The dilemma of the EU vis- a- vis political Islam first came into focus when former President of France, Giscard D’Estaing drafted the preamble of the EU Constitution. In his original draft he noted that Europe was a Christian continent, inhabited mainly by Christians and white people! He was forced to withdraw the draft and modify it after a public outcry. His comments however remain mainstream public sentiments in much of Europe.

From 2016 to 2017, international terrorism made a violent entrance to the shores of the continent of Europe and permanently altered the liberal democratic values upheld and enshrined in the Charter of the European Court of Justice. Attacks in Paris were followed by terror attacks in Brussels and Nice and multiple attacks in London. Islamophobia and fundamentalism started growing along with anti-migration sentiments. From West to East Europe, an allied front of right wing, chauvinistic and nationalistic parties arose threatening the largely liberal establishment. While the extreme right was decisively defeated in Netherlands and France, this should not be taken as a decisive trend in favour of established forces. While the extreme right could not get a majority in Netherlands, government formation was preceded by one year long negotiations between parties. In France, on the other hand, the astounding victory of President Macron¹, the youngest Head of State in France since Napoleon, was followed by a resounding legislative mandate for his new party ‘Republique en Marche!’ Macron has now embarked on an austerity agenda which could fuel the current of isolationist nationalism in France. In case Macron cannot turn the French economy around, the same forces that propelled him to power could bring him down. Only time will tell.

Europe then anxiously awaited the outcome of crucial elections in Germany held on 24th September 2017 that would decide the fate of Chancellor Angela Merkel and potentially impact the Franco-German axis during the Brexit process. The results were disappointing with the far right Alternative for Deutschland (Germany) named AfD² winning seats in the German Reichstag (Parliament) for the first time in decades. On 7th February 2018, after tortuous negotiations, Merkel agreed to a coalition deal with her previous governing partners notably the Social Democrats, bringing her within striking distance of forming a new government. The pact came at a high price since Merkel’s Conservative Party (Christian Democrats) had to give up the powerful Finance Ministry to the centre left Social Democrats. So reluctant were the Social Democrats to enter this coalition that its leaders insisted that the deal be approved by the entire membership (4,63,000 members) of their party. Ultimately through majority vote, the coalition was approved and a new German Government sworn in. The new German government no longer commands a majority. The AfD has become the strongest opposition force. It seemed at that time that with a greatly weakened Chancellor in her fourth and final term, Macron would lead the Franco German axis for the EU, from the front.

There are new cracks emerging in the ruling coalition on migration, with Horst Seehofer of the Christian Social Union threatening to turn away migrants unilaterally from the Bavaria border, unless EU adopts a strict no migrant policy. Although papered over by a weak compromise at a EU Summit on 29th June 2018, the deal is bound to collapse since no detention centers in EU states other than the recipient states have been identified.

The rise of right wing forces in Eastern and Central Europe pose a grave threat to European values. The same illiberal and undemocratic trends are visible in Hungary, the Czech Republic and Poland. As Ivan Krastev (New York Times, February 2018) noted: In its Eastern version, conservatism rejects modernity as a whole… it is against any form of cosmopolitanism or diversity. Hungary has become the role model of illiberal democracy. Prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary elaborated this ideology in February 2018 at a public gathering: "We