When it comes to fighting climate change, to trade matters, to fighting terrorism, to addressing global diseases, we believe that we have to do it on the basis of shared principles and common agreements; that we have to do it by having everybody around the table agreeing on the measures which have to be taken. We think that the relationship between EU and India is bound to increase politically and economically.

The third element on which progress can be made between us is scientific, educational and cultural cooperation. There has to be more and more interaction among countries and continents in these respects.

When it comes to the India and France relationship, the two countries share a strategic partnership since 1998. We believe India and France can talk about absolutely everything. They can have a concrete relationship by which they address their actual needs in a very forthright manner. The first example of this has been our support to the candidature of India to a permanent seat at the UN Security Council. Then there is our belief that it was necessary to redefine the rules of the game when it comes to India in nuclear civil cooperation with the rest of the world. This strategic partnership was reaffirmed when President Sarkozy came to India on a state visit in January 2008 and by the nuclear agreement signed between France and India when PM Singh was in France. It is a major achievement symbolically and politically because it shows we have found a solution to a specific problem -- the impossibility to cooperate with India, in the nuclear civil field.

... contd.