Executive Summary
On January 27th 2026, India and the EU signed the Security and Defence Partnership (SDP), setting out to improve cooperation in domains such as maritime security, military-industrial cooperation and the exchange of global threat assessments. This concluded a two-decade-long effort to enhance a partnership that is now strengthened, also due to both sides being on the lookout for new partnerships amid shifts in the geopolitical landscape. While the agreement holds the potential to promise closer cooperation in multiple domains, experts highlight multiple obstacles, with the Indian-Russian relationship being the major one.
Key Facts
- On the 27th of January 2026, alongside the long-negotiated Free Trade Agreement, India and the EU signed the SDP, marking another diplomatic milestone in India-EU relations.
- One of the agreement’s key practical targets is maritime security cooperation in the Indo-Pacific by enhancing the current EUNAVFOR missions Atalanta and Aspides through joint activities.
- According to experts, several other areas of cooperation, such as the exchange of global threat assessments, are likely to remain constrained primarily due to both sides’ diverging stances on Russia’s war in Ukraine.
Background & Context
Trade- and economy-focused improvement of the relationship between the EU and India has been observable since 2004, when both sides signed the Strategic Partnership. Multiple agreements of cooperation followed in the years after, culminating in the Free Trade Agreement and the SDP being signed on the same day in January 2026. Defence industrial cooperation has been improving, especially because India reevaluated its previously strong reliance on Russian arms export capacities, which shrank with the start of its war in Ukraine. Nonetheless, since closer cooperation began, experts warned that the security cooperation goals of the partnership may remain limited due to both sides’ contrasting global threat perceptions. Therefore, experts have advocated for a more modular partnership that does not require strict alignment for cooperation in geopolitics.
Current Status and Trends
The SDP constitutes such a modular issue-driven partnership, as it lays out specific, yet separate and independent, areas of security cooperation in a non-binding agreement. Especially clauses 8-11 and 32, which promote cooperation in maritime security as well as defence industry initiatives, are expected to bear practical fruits. For the EU, which sees itself confronted with a declining US commitment to continental Europe’s security, India can become an even more vital partner regarding defence industrial manufacturing. Regarding the threat of growing China-Pakistan cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region, with the SDP, India is further improving potential hard-power maritime alliances with the EU through joint activities between the Indian Navy and EUNAVFOR missions. Nonetheless, certain areas of cooperation are likely to remain limited, especially the exchange of global threat assessments, as the EU and India face diverging strategic priorities, with the EU primarily focused on Russia and India on China. This is evident in the fact that the Security of Information Agreement, which will serve as the backbone for exchanging threat assessments as well as for military-industrial cooperation, is still being negotiated months after the signing of the SDP. Nonetheless, these developments and hurdles should be viewed in the context of the Joint European Union-India Comprehensive Strategic Agenda, which aims to achieve the partnership’s goals by 2030. It therefore remains to be seen whether India’s relationship with Russia, although already shrunken, will become an obstacle in the Security of Information negotiations.