EU Global Gateway

With insurgency in the Northeastern region almost becoming a thing of the past, significant improvement on the law-and-order front in recent years has attracted the attention of global investors to the region. Replacing the Look East Policy with the Act East Policy in 2014, with renewed focus on the extended neighbourhood in the Asia-Pacific region, has added further impetus to the region’s economic development. Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s special focus on the Northeast has already brought some important foreign investments to the region. Last week saw a delegation of the European Union hold a consultation titled ‘EU-India Global Gateway Conference’ in Shillong in order to explore the scope of extending activities in the region under the EU-India Connectivity Partnership, particularly in areas of energy, transport, health, education, climate, renewable energy, trade, and sustainable value chains, to name a few. It is important to note that the EU-India Connectivity Partnership of 2021 stresses the importance of India as a geo-political partner and the mutual interest between India and the EU in sustainable connectivity. The adoption of the EU Indo-Pacific Strategy in 2021 is another step forward in working together for a peaceful and prosperous future in the region. It has already been laid out that the European Union and India are committed to fostering connectivity dialogue and projects with a special focus on social, economic, fiscal, climate, and environmental sustainability. The Connectivity Partnership, on the other hand, aims at supporting sustainable digital, transport, and energy networks, in addition to the flow of people, goods, services, data, and capital centred on equity and inclusivity for the benefit of both the EU and India. As has been reported by this newspaper in its Sunday edition, the EU-India Global Gateway Conference held in Shillong saw the coming together of top EU officials, senior Indian diplomats and bureaucrats, as well as experts from various fields from the Northeast as well as from Bangladesh. While the exact outcome or resolutions adopted in the Shillong conference are yet to be known, the fact remains that the Northeast has in recent times attracted a lot of positive attention from India’s partners in the developed world. What is now probably required is that the people in the region talk more about development, especially in the context of the Sustainable Development Goals, and make it convenient for investments to flow without any hindrance. Simultaneously, it is for the state governments in the region to ensure that the educated youth of the region are prepared to become partners in the new development scenario.