[The Mother of All Deals: Beyond Trade] - Two Political Projects with Converging Values?

On January 27, 2026, India and the EU sealed a new Free Trade Agreement (FTA) coined the "Mother of all Deals" by EU Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen. It must deliver a "trust-based platform for cooperation on the strategic issues that matter most". The motherly connotations of what essentially is prosaic and technical trade rules language point to an ambition to engender deeper ties between Europe and India in an uncertain geopolitical arena.

In recent months, numerous international trade and geopolitical analyses have been devoted to the EU-India FTA. Most of them intended to understand the macroeconomic consequences for these two markets of respectively 0.45 and 1.45 billion inhabitants, together close to a quarter of the world population. Sector per sector, experts analysed how reduced tariffs and other trade barriers affect prices, jobs and supply chains, most notably in agriculture, car manufacturing, textile or IT.

Fewer studies discussed the more comprehensive umbrella under which this trade deal was sealed. Next to the free trade agreement, a strategic and defence partnership (SDP) was signed, opening the door for Indian participation in "ReArm Europe" procurement schemes. Agreements on the secured exchange of sensitive information and cooperation agreements for research, innovation and talent mobility were signed as well. Sylvia Malinbaum puts this group of deals into historic perspective and sees a slow but steady deepening of relationships since the end of the colonial era.

Beyond these technical and economic discussions, the very nature of the EU-India relationship remains largely unscrutinized: will they remain largely commercial and interest-based or do deeper cultural convergences exist?

To unleash the full potential of a their relationship, a series of conditions can envisioned: a shared commitment to collaboration as equal regional blocs for improving domestic socio-economic and environmental conditions of their people; coordinated strategies regarding US and China relations; joint efforts to reform the multilateral institutional order; explicit discourses in favour of peace and fostered citizen-level interpersonal bonds.

European Unification for Peace

The Schuman Declaration in 1950 is usually referred to as the start of the European integration project. The subsequent treaties of Paris (ECSC, 1951) and Rome (instituting the EC, 1957) formed the first formal agreements to create a common market between the six founding states. Since then, new countries have joined the community to which an increasing number of competencies have been devolved. By formally creating the European Union, by preparing the issuance of a common currency and by introducing common foreign and security policies, the Maastricht Treaty of 1992 marked a major turning point, confirmed by the Lisbon Treaty of 2009 and following enlargements.

From the outset, this slow but steady integration process of economic and foreign policies has pursued an objective of peace, constantly reaffirmed by the founding Fathers - Robert Schuman, Jean Monnet, Konrad Adenauer, Alcide De Gasperi and others. Article 3 of the current Treaty on the European Union anchors it in the texts. The promotion of peace rests on a set of values which are universal in their horizon, such as freedom, human dignity, equality or the rule of law. This universalism, derived from the intertwined Judaeo-Christian and Enlightenment heritages also constitutes a rejection of imperialist temptations that had led the old continent to two terribly bloody wars.

From the beginning of European integration, the tension between centripetal forces for increased federalization and centrifugal reflexes defending sovereignty of the nation-states have fuelled European debates. The longstanding ambiguous relationship between the UK and the EU or the French and Dutch rejections of an EU Constitution are historical examples of this tension. Today, this friction and the issue of subsidiarity continue to be at the centre of European policy debates: common debt issuance, transfer of defence competencies, coordination of migration and climate policies.

Non-Violent Emancipation from the British Rule

India emerged as a federal republic after World War II, helped by a weakened British Empire. The quest for freedom from colonial rule and for self-determination were the motor of the independence movement. The independence project has been deeply influenced by an ideal of social peace, not least embodied by the figure of Gandhi. The biggest challenge was to federate an immense number of separate states and regions that had diverse degrees of autonomy from the British empire.

At midnight on August 14th, 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru pronounced his historic inauguration address as first Prime Minister. He underscored the universal dimension of India’s emancipation, between freedom and sovereignty, asserting his conviction that all human beings are intimately bound together: "Freedom and power brings responsibility (…) we have to labour and to work, and to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for India, but they are also for the world, for all nations and peoples are too closely knit together today for any one of them to imagine that it can live apart. Peace is said to be indivisible, so is freedom, so is prosperity now, and also is a disaster in this one world that can no longer be split into isolated fragments."

Only a universalist ideal, enshrined in India’s Constitution (for instance in its preamble or the pacifist articles 51 and 51A), could unite hundreds of millions of people from a myriad of Princely States and British Indies’ Provinces, composed of hundreds of languages, thousands of ethnicities and pretty much every existing religion on the globe. Gandhi’s embodied example of non-violence and asceticism remains a universal legacy, a gift of India to the entire world. So Nehru concludes his speech: "To the nations and peoples of the world we send greetings and pledge ourselves to cooperate with them in furthering peace, freedom and democracy."

Contemporary Convergence in Institutional and Democratic Culture

As we have seen, the European Union and India appear to be two projects of federal democratic governance for peace, emerging from the ashes of World War II. Both rejected the violent legacies from empires, through an integration process of former adversaries in Europe and through independence and self-determination for India, despite tensions between nationalist and universalist forces.

The EU and India are born from a democratic ambition that is still thriving today, despite some unavoidable insufficiencies. European nations are places where power is handed over from elected leader to elected leader in a peaceful way, where expression is free, checks and balances mostly respected and featuring high standards of living on many metrics. India is considered "the largest democracy globally", harbouring exceptionally high turnovers to the voting booth, usually above 65% and over 80% in certain regions. With over 140.000 registered periodicals, India ranks among the largest newspaper markets in the world, and citizens actively read and engage with political news. Certainly, growing authoritarianism and an increasingly overt Hindu supremacism cast troubling shadows. More fundamentally, however, there are significant areas of convergence in the way Europeans and Indians approach the concepts of human dignity, the rule of law, and multilateral diplomacy - principles that lie at the heart of the democratic order.

Human Dignity, a Multifaceted Foundation

The philosophical genealogy of the human dignity - idea that all human beings possess an equal intrinsic worth - takes root in the Judaeo-Christian "Imago Dei", and the Enlightenment opened the door for non-believing conceptions of human dignity: the dignity of man is then based on its capacities to exert reason, his "rational autonomy" in the words of Kant. For existentialist and personalist philosophers such as Martin Buber, Albert Camus, Emmanuel Mounier or Emmanuel Levinas, the relational component of human existence emerges as a core tenet of human dignity. Practical implementation of human dignity still leads to numerous debates, notably with regards to human rights, citizenship or migration.

In the Indian context, the philosophical substrate for human dignity is plural with the main influences being from Dharmic faiths (Buddhism, Hinduism, Jainism and Sikhism). The idea that deity permeates all things leads to a quest for fusion with the universe and can create a sense of proximity with other humans. The belief in reincarnation, partly derived from an understanding of time being circular, instils hierarchical social categories such as the caste system. While castes stand at odds with the idea of dignity according to founding Father and former Minister of Justice Ambedkar (Annihilation of Caste, 1936), the perpetual efforts to seek a better future incarnation leads to ascetic and virtue-based ethics which can become source of dignity. Gandhi notably wanted to regenerate India through efforts from within. The Indian ethos is fascinated by values. Finally, the long habit of coexistence of Dharmic religions with a diversity of other faith groups, notably Abrahamic, provides the basis for practical ethics of respect and fraternity as a basis for understanding human dignity.

In sum, Europe and India converge towards an understanding of human dignity to be lived through fraternity, with theoretical philosophical roots in Europe and plural practical traditions in India. An anonymous expert from the EU delegation in New Delhi judges the approach to citizenship more noble in India than in Europe: "In India, if you are here, you are part of the political community, you belong to the territory. But increasingly, as in Europe, bureaucratization pushes towards a more religious, ethnic or language-based definition of citizenship and that debate arises around the question: are you really Indian?"

Rule of Law: a Cornerstone of Indian and European Democratic Life

India as a "country of lawyers" shows a vibrant lawyer’s community, a strongly hierarchical administrative system, a deep respect for authority and a Common Law system inherited from Great Britain. The Indian Constitution, amended over 100 times in 75 years, reflects a dynamic legal landscape. The Supreme Court handles an astonishing number of close to 75,000 cases annually with just 34 judges. Despite allegations of corruption and the structural challenges of enormous and increasing backlogs, the Indian judiciary tries hard to remain a bastion of independence (discrimination practices mostly happen at state and district level). Concerns emerge about independence of the press as the global trend of concentration of the media landscape hits India and some journalists were recently arrested.

Legal tradition in Europe draws heavily on regulation. The EU is often described as a mere normative power, and critics question its ability to steer effective political action. While the EU Member States generally uphold independent judiciaries and free press, backlogs and delays are not rare. Legislative inflation and resulting inefficiencies can be attributed to a largely individualistic understanding of rights. Authoritarian challenges to the rule of law also exist. Years of illiberal democracy in Hungary, with systematic efforts to curtail judicial independence and media freedom, became a focal point of concern. In other member states such as Poland, breaches of constitutional norms and attempts to politicize the judiciary have prompted warnings from EU institutions in recent years. These developments highlight that, while the EU’s legal framework is robust, its implementation is not immune to political pressures and backsliding.

Multilateralism: Towards Deeper Alignment Between the EU and India?

The EU and India present themselves as champions of multilateralism, yet their approaches differ. The Indian tradition of non-alignment, rooted in Cold War-era neutrality, has evolved into a form of "minilateralism," seeking coalitions of the willing on specific issues. India’s recent foreign policy has become increasingly insular and focused on domestic challenges, being less vocal about international injustices.

Amongst the key difficulties for reconciling European and Indian foreign agendas are the different positions on Russia, on Gaza and on the approach to climate transition. The potential for deeper EU-India alignment in multilateral diplomacy hinges on leaders’ capacity to navigate these differences, engage in respectful disagreement, and uphold a commitment to dialogue within international fora. The current trend to ad-hoc coalitions full of pragmatism is welcome, but long-term geopolitical stability must be ensured by similar diplomatic efforts to sustain multilateral institutional discussion channels too.