Slovenia foreign minister bats for stronger ties with India, engagement on Indo pacific

Slovenia's foreign minister Anže Logar has batted for strong ties with India while calling on the European Union to increase engagement with countries in the Indo Pacific. Speaking exclusively to our Principal Diplomatic Correspondent Sidhant Sibal, Logar said, "India is a very interesting and very welcome partner for cooperation...see many common positions that we can take together". On the Indo Pacific vision, the foreign minister said, "we think the EU has to be very actively engaged in discussion with Indo-Pacific countries".

His comments are important since Slovenia will be presiding over the Council of the European Union from July for six months. Prime Minister Narendra Modi is expected to travel to Portugal next month for the India EU summit. The summit happens under the Portuguese presidency. When asked about India EU Free trade agreement, FM Logar pointed out that, his country "would like to bring this issue back high on the agenda of the European Union"

Question: How do you see India-Slovenia ties?

Anže Logar: For Slovenia, India is a very interesting and very welcoming partner for cooperation. India is the 3rd most important market in this region if we count it as bilateral trade. And I see many common positions that we can take together, especially, with the new developments of digitalization, artificial intelligence. Looking forward to enhanced cooperation.

Question: Next month, the Indian PM is expected to travel to Portugal for the India EU summit. What will be the key focus? Also, on India EU FTA, while Indian political leadership is keen on it, but it looks some reluctance from European bureaucrats.

Anže Logar: In a way, India is becoming more and more important and even your foreign policy is growing its importance and interest in this global currents of political engagement and economical engagement. In that sense, European Union and India are sharing their values, values built on rule of law and coming from the same democratic hemisphere of the world. In that sense, one should only complement enhanced cooperation and I see initiatives from the Portuguese presidency, very good in a way to improve our bilateral exchange, be it from the economic point of view, be it from a political point of view. Due to the Slovenian geo strategical position, we have port Koper, which can be a very good gate for Indian enterprises, in order to access the European hinterland. In that terms, Slovenia is very interested in enhancing cooperation at the EU level.

Question: What about the India-EU FTA?

Anže Logar: We would like to bring this issue back high on the agenda of the European Union. We saw free trade agreement between several countries in the Indo-Pacific region, in which India did not participate in the initiative. It is very important we proceed towards this initiative between India and the European Union. I see this, as one of the main topics on the agenda.

Question: Slovenia has great tourism potential, especially for Indian tourists..

Anže Logar: Slovenia can offer, on a very small piece of land everything, what to expect, perfect landscapes. This voice of beauty of Slovenia spread around quickly. In that sense, I would suggest, like better, on the highest possible engagement between our tourist agencies as well as to enhance our cooperation. Direct air flight would definitely enhance the availability of the Slovenian tourist market to Indian tourists. 

Question: What kind of cooperation do India and Slovenia have against the COVID pandemic?

Anže Logar: We can exchange information and EU the countries exchange it on a daily basis, and if there is some good consequences on countering pandemic, there are best practices in every country around the globe, if we can exchange this, how to tackle the crisis, this is a good way on how to proceed on a mix of measures that can lower volume of the spread of the crisis. Now we heading to the 2nd phase, which is the vaccination period, in that sense, it is a global problem. Until we globally vaccinate the population, we still will have problems with covid.  So we have to cooperate in that sense. India, has vast production capacities for vaccines, and the EU is trying to build up the capacities in producing our own, so we have vast space for cooperation. We are all on the same boat, so we have to go in the same direction.

Question: Slovenia will be presiding over the Council of the European Union from July for 6 months. Any key focus areas?

Anže Logar: We hope, we will be the first presidency in a row that will hold meetings in person. In-person rather than via audio and video because it gives pristine relation with interlocutors and it is much easier to agree on certain important details in person than via virtual connections. We hope we will be able to perform it in a full-fledged presidency. If we consider one globally important issue, it is to improve and enhance cooperation with our ally the US. The last summit was 2017 and since then no discussion at the highest level. FTA between EU and US was stopped, and we have to kick that. The same is with India, we want to synchronize our views on bilateral exchange. Slovenia as a country of central Europe, we want to focus on countries of central Europe and western Balkans. There will be 2 main issues, one is resilient Europe on the health sector and we want to give strategic debate on managing the health crisis and aim to have good crisis management and 2nd is cybersecurity. Data is next oil and EU needs to be prepared on safeguarding the digital life of European union

Question: Chinese rise, how do you see that?

Anže Logar: China is a seasoned power, it is rising as well, India is rising as well. Big markets are increasing influence in the world and we need to take this into consideration. If look into the Slovenian side, we have imbalanced bilateral ties with China. We import much more than export, and from my perspective, in not so distant future we want to balance this. Between the partners, we should have more or less the same exchanges. Slovenia can offer high edge technologies, we are taking an active part in seeing the possibility to enhance our bilateral ties. If we look at the EU perspective, the last days of the German presidency, the end of 2020, we had an institutional agreement on investment with China.

Question:: How do you see the Indo Pacific vision?

Anže Logar: A lot of focus on Indo Pacific, as well your FM Jaishankar in his book the Indian way, stressed on rediscovering Indo Pacific and the importance of it. We know the first visit of the US Secretary of state was to Indo Pacific. This is proof of the importance of the region. As the incoming presidency, we think the EU has to be very actively engaged in discussion with Indo-Pacific countries.