EU keen on summit with India, working on dates

New Delhi, March 18 (IANS) The European Union is very keen to hold the India-EU Summit and is working on dates for a proposed summit, after India called off a visit by Prime Minister Narendra Modi to Brussels in April, a top EU official said here on Wednesday.

"The host for the next EU-India Summit is the European Union. The EU is keen to have a summit with India and is looking for a mutually convenient date which would allow for sufficient preparation," Joao Cravinho, EU envoy to India, said in a statement.

Modi, who is visiting Germany for the Hannover Messe industrial fair on April 13, and is expected to travel to France too, will not be visiting Brussels where the EU is headquartered, after the bloc reportedly failed to get back to India with dates for the prime minister's visit.

Modi is expected to travel to Canada from France. He was reportedly keen to include a summit with the 28-member bloc as the last India-EU summit was held in 2012.

Cravinho said that as a mutually convenient date is being worked out for Modi's visit, "high level visits continue to take place".

"We have had a highly productive meeting with the Indian government under the aegis of the EU-India Environment Forum end of February," he said.

This week, six Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) are on a visit to India and have had meeting with ministers and officials in New Delhi and Jaipur, he said.

He said "official consultations on cyber security and on the renewal of the EU-India Science and Technology Agreement are slated to take place in the following weeks".

The EU also said a senior parliamentary delegation had met their "appropriate counterparts" in India, amid reports that the group of six MEPs could not get to meet Modi, or External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj after the EU failed to give dates on time for the prime minister's proposed Brussels visit.

Geoffrey Van Orden, chair of the European Parliament delegation for relations with India, admitted at a briefing with the media earlier this week that he was "very disappointed" that the summit would not be taking place.

The European Union delegation to India, which also visited Jaipur, said they had "sought meetings with the appropriate counterparts".

They said they were "very pleased" that the delegation had constructive meetings with Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu, Road Transport, Highways and Shipping Minister Nitin Gadkari, Shashi Tharoor, chairperson of the Standing Committee on External Affairs, Deputy National Security Adviser Arvind Gupta and Minister of State for External Affairs V.K. Singh in Delhi and Rajasthan Chief Minister Vasundhara Raje and Rajasthan assembly Speaker Kailash Meghwal in Jaipur.