♤ The EU is also the largest destination for Indian exports and a key source of the investment and cutting edge technologies.

♤ India-EU relations date to the early 1960s, with India being amongst the first countries to establish diplomatic relations with the European Economic Community. A cooperation agreement signed in 1994 took the bilateral relationship beyond trade and economic cooperation.

♤ The first India-EU Summit took place in Lisbon on 28 June 2000 and marked a watershed in the evolution of the relationship. Since then, thirteen annual Summits have been held.

♤ At the 5th India-EU Summit held at The Hague in 2004, the relationship was upgraded to a ‘Strategic Partnership’. The two sides adopted a Joint Action Plan in 2005 (which was reviewed in 2008) that provided for strengthening dialogue and consultation mechanisms in the political and economic spheres, enhancing trade and investment, and bringing peoples and cultures together.

♤ India-EU relations received another boost with the 13th India-EU Summit at Brussels, held after a gap of four years, in March 2016 adopting the India-EU Agenda 2020, which lays