Press Briefings

Briefing by Secretary (West) on forthcoming visit of Hon’ble President to Spain and Poland

17/04/2009

Official Spokesperson (Shri Vishnu Prakash): Good evening and a very warm welcome to all of you. As you know, Hon’ble Rashtrapatiji is going on a State visit to Spain and then to Poland. Secretary (West) Mr. Nalin Surie is here to brief you about the President’s visit. He will be making an opening statement and, thereafter, he will be very happy to take some questions. To Secretary (West)’s right, we have Officer on Special Duty for Public Relations from President’s Secretariat Ms Archana Dutta.

Sir, the floor is yours.

Secretary (West) (Shri Nalin Surie): Thank you Vishnu, and thank you all for coming this afternoon.

Rashrapatiji will pay a State Visit to Spain and Poland from 20-27 April, 2009. Her first stop will be in Spain and thereafter Poland, from where she will return directly to New Delhi. This is the first ever State Visit by the President of India to Spain and the fourth State Visit by an Indian President to Poland.

Rashtrapatiji would be accompanied by her husband, Dr. Devisingh Ramsingh Shekhawat. Other members include Hon’ble Dr. Ashwani Kumar, Minister of State, Department of Industrial Policy & Promotion, three Members of Parliament (Shri Shreegopal Vyas, Rajya Sabha and Smt. C.S. Sujatha and Smt. Ingrid Mcleod, both of the Lok Sabha) and an official delegation. A combined business team comprising members of CII, FICCI and ASSOCHAM and media persons will also be part of the Hon’ble President’s delegation.

Both in Madrid and Warsaw, Rashtrapatiji will be received with full State honours. In Madrid, Their Majesties the King and Queen of Spain and in Poland, the President of Poland and Mrs. Kaczynska will host banquets in her honour. In both countries, in addition to discussions with her counterparts, Rashtraptiji will hold discussions with the respective Prime Ministers. We expect to sign two-three agreements each with both countries. These are agreements that would help further diversify the already close relations that exist between India and Spain & Poland. India’s relations with both these countries are multifaceted. Our effort is to deepen and diversify these.

Spain joined the European Union in 1984. It is the eighth largest economy in the world and has emerged since the mid 1970s as an effective democracy. It is our sixth largest export market in the EU. We see great potential for expanding our trade and investment links with her. It also has close interaction with the countries of Latin America, a region of the world with which our ties are also expanding rapidly.


Poland joined the European Union in 2004 and is also a revived and flourishing democracy. We have a history of close relations with it. There is a thriving school of Indology in cities such as Krakow and Warsaw and our trade and economic interaction is growing well.

In both countries, Rashtrapatiji will address meetings between our business delegation and business delegations from Spain & Poland. She will also address members of the Indian community in these two countries. We see further opportunities for collaboration between India on the one hand and Spain & Poland on the other in the fields of trade, investment, S&T, culture, defence, renewable energy, health and the fight against terrorism. You would recall that both Spain and Poland were supportive of India’s quest for civil nuclear energy. We also cooperate well in multilateral organizations.

Both Spain and Poland are important members of the European Union with whom we have a Strategic Partnership, a comprehensive Joint Action Plan and annual Summit meetings. Both countries are instrumental in helping us further strengthen the growing partnership between India and the European Union. Spain will hold the EU Presidency in the first half of 2010 at which time we will hold the Troika meeting at Ministerial level.

Rashtrapatiji’s visit to Spain and Poland is not only a signal of the importance that we attach to our relations with these two countries but also with the European Union. It is also reflective of our desire to sustain our high level bilateral engagement with Europe and to diversify our ties into new areas. There is much that we have to do together to jointly address major international issues such as terrorism, the current global financial and economic crisis etc.


Thank you. I will be happy to take questions.

Question: Will there be any agreement on terrorism with Spain and Poland?


Secretary (West): We will not have any agreement on terrorism with either Spain or Poland but we already have close cooperation with these countries on fighting terrorism. As you know, we have a Joint Working Group on Terrorism with the European Union plus with some individual countries of the European Union. Both countries had condemned the Mumbai terror attacks in unambiguous terms.

Question: There are reports indicating Al-Qaeda related bases in Spain. Spain itself has been a victim of Al-Qaeda led attack. So, there is considerable scope for enhancing counter-terror cooperation. Apart from this visit, what are we looking at in terms of long-term counter-terror cooperation? Is there a specific mechanism?


Secretary (West): When the Deputy Prime Minister of Spain was here earlier in the year we had discussions on this issue, which are being pursued. You are absolutely right. There are reports that Al-Qaeda is operating out of Spain. We are interested in working with Spain in the fight against terrorism, and they are interested in working with us on this subject. It is a process which is under way.

Question: We may have good trade with Spain but what about our trade with Poland? What is the two-way trade between the two countries?


Secretary (West): It was 1.2 billion dollars last year. But the potential is much higher. Poland is an economy which is doing extremely well. It is one of the new members of the European Union which is doing very well.



Question: What are the other common factors in which you think India and Poland can work jointly, maybe like fighting terrorism? In the European Union, Poland happens to be one of the recently joined members. What do you think is the potential between India and Poland? I remember that Mr. Shankar Dayal Sharma had visited Poland long time back.


Secretary (West): It was in October, 1996.

Question: Yes. After that I think there has not been any high-level visits between the two countries.


Secretary (West): Actually President Kaczynski came here in 1998 January. Their Prime Minister was here in 2003. There have been a lot of Ministerial visits on both sides. From our side there has not been a high-level visit for a while. That is why this President’s visit is so important both to Spain and Poland. It fills in a vacuum which had begun to sort of come up, not because there is any effort on our part to reduce the importance of these countries. Our relations with both are extremely important. As a former Ambassador to Poland I can tell you we have a lot to do with Poland. We had a lot to do in the pre-democratic times and we have a lot to do now. But Poland has been focusing for many years since it became a democracy again on its internal sort of processes of reform, joining NATO, joining the European Union, and now again looking outwards. So, I think we have potential there. But with Spain, as you said, we already have a very large trade volume. It is over 4.5 billion dollars.



Question: You said we will be signing two-three agreements. In what are the areas and what kinds of agreements will they be? Can you throw some more light on that?

Secretary (West): I have done this with you before. I do not want to name the agreements yet because there are approvals which are still under way.



Question: Can you tell us at least the sectors?


Secretary (West): These will be sectoral agreements because with both countries the basic agreements are already in place. These are old relationships: these are not new relationships. The President’s visit is intended to underline the importance we attach to these two countries.



Question: How large is the Indian community in Spain and Poland?


Secretary (West): The community in Spain is larger, about 20,000 to 30,000. In Poland it is much smaller. It should be under a thousand. I do not have a figure to give you off hand but I will give it to you later.



Question: Aapne kaha ki Joint Working Group hai terrorism ke maamle par.


Secretary (West): Ji haan, European Union ke saath.

Question: In view of 26/11 Mumbai attack, is there any further effort with these countries?


Secretary (West): As you know, we have Joint Working Groups also with countries like Germany, France, the UK, etc. A lot of bilateral cooperation is taking place post-26/11 with these countries and with the European Union as a whole. The whole world has been very concerned about what happened in Mumbai and we are getting cooperation across all continents.



Official Spokesperson: Thank you very much for coming.