Scholz wants Germany to deepen its relations with India

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has said he wants to deepen his country’s relationship with India ahead of his meeting with Prime Minister Narendra Modi in New Delhi.

“India and Germany have very good relations and want to deepen them. This will be the topic of our discussions and, more importantly, peace in the world,” Soltz said in a tweet.

Scholz, who is meeting Modi for the fourth time, arrived in India a day after the first anniversary of the start of the war in Ukraine, reflecting the growing importance of New Delhi to Western powers seeking support for their opposition to Russian invasion.

Scholz is also expected to push hard for a $5.2 billion deal to sell New Delhi six conventional submarines, although this new effort by a Western power to reduce India’s dependence on Russia for military equipment is not expected to have immediate results.

Germany’s push to pivot to India runs into difficulties, given that close economic ties with China, the main buyer of German machinery, and Russia, its main energy supplier, have played a role in Germany’s prosperity over the past 15 years.

While one of the stated goals of the trip is to improve economic ties, officials are aware of the need to pressure what will soon be the world’s most populous nation to oppose Russian aggression, even though cutting economic ties with India with Moscow is not on the table.

“Each region has its own point of view,” said a German official. “Each region has its own way of practicing diplomacy. In our own talks, we agreed who is the aggressor and who is the victim.”

Modi’s government has not openly criticized Moscow for the invasion and has instead called for dialogue and diplomacy to end the war. India has also greatly increased purchases of oil from Russia, its biggest defense supplier, despite falling prices.

“They pay less, Indians are happy with that. Russia gets less, and we are satisfied with that,” a German government official said, adding that it was impossible to expect other countries to impose sanctions, as the European Union and the US do.