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The perils of ignoring Europe

WHILE A SUSTAINED diplomatic effort would appear to have succeeded in making certain sections of the European community re-adjust the focus of their views on developments in South Asia, India's foreign policy establishment needs to draw lessons from the experiences in Copenhagen. The European Union President and Danish Prime Minister, Anders Rasmussen, did not cast himself in very good light when he drastically changed the emphasis of his line on subcontinental affairs even as he exchanged one hat for the other. While articulating their views at the end of the India-E.U. summit, Mr. Rasmussen and his officials did not deem it appropriate to accord sufficient attention to India's grievance at being a victim of cross-border terrorism even as they exhorted their co-summiteers to initiate a dialogue with Pakistan. A day later — after dealing with his Indian counterpart, Atal Behari Vajpayee, on the bilateral plane — the Danish Prime Minister preferred to expound on his appreciation that an end to cross-border terrorism would improve the climate for a dialogue. The alteration in the thrust of Mr. Rasmussen's approach is, however, not the matter that India's foreign policy establishment must keep foremost in mind when it looks back at the Copenhagen experiences. New Delhi has to re-scrutinise its own diplomatic operations thus far and pinpoint the drawback that necessitated an extra effort for a more favourable outcome. In retrospect, it would appear that the interactions on both planes in Copenhagen would have been smoother if New Delhi had put its readiness to resume a dialogue with Islamabad up front and presented the issue of cross-border terrorism as a hindrance. That might have made for a more productive method than the one which has been followed of positing an end to cross-border terrorism as the pre-condition for a dialogue.

There is also a lesson to be learnt from the facts that the Danish Prime Minister initially had an outlook on subcontinental affairs quite different from that of several other European leaders and that he was amenable to a change of mind once he was briefed in detail. An inescapable inference is that the Indian diplomatic efforts have yet to strike the right balance. While it is not possible to sustain the same level of efforts all around the globe, it is surely necessary that the cross-connections between the various nations that are being simultaneously dealt with are not overlooked. There is no complete unanimity of views within the E.U. and it is probable that European nations which have been directly afflicted by terrorism would be less sanguine on the matter than the Scandinavian bloc that has a markedly milder attitude to this phenomenon. But what Mr. Rasmussen's comments after the summit revealed was that for nations that are further removed from the epicentre of global terrorism the tensions between two nuclear-armed neighbours that could escalate into a horrendous conflict with a global fallout is a matter for more immediate concern.

To an extent, the E.U.'s hesitance to take on board India's projections could be attributable to New Delhi's slackness in engaging with it more vigorously on political, especially security related matters. This might have added to the sense of injury that the E.U. is currently suffering from on account of the rather dismissive manner in which Washington is dealing with it. While it is true that the E.U. has, either on account of a lack of ability or of will, not been involved to the extent that it should be on global security issues, to deal with it purely on the basis of current performance is to ignore the grouping's potential in international politics. It is after all to India's advantage that multi-polarity be enhanced and with Russia and China not able, for the moment, to exert their full potential there is a necessity to boost the E.U.'s prestige and its desire for engaging with global issues.

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