India and Belgium Deepen Ties: Green Hydrogen, Semiconductors and Defence Deals

Secretary (West) Sibi George, steering India's European engagements from South Block, shared the table with Theodora Gentzis, the newly appointed President of the Board of Belgium's Federal Public Service Foreign Affairs.

Princess Astrid's strong 362-member economic mission to Mumbai and Delhi eight months earlier.

The two-hour session opened with warm recollections of Belgian Deputy Prime Minister Petra De Sutter's Delhi visit and External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar's Brussels stopover, exchanges that had quietly turbo-charged bilateral trade past the ten-billion-euro mark.

Gentzis responded by unveiling fresh data; Belgian portfolios in Indian ports, pharmaceuticals and diamonds now exceed four billion euros in cumulative FDI, while Indian IT campuses in Antwerp and Ghent employ over three thousand Europeans.

Conversation swiftly pivoted to tomorrow's priorities. Both sides pledged deeper collaboration in green hydrogen, with Belgium's Zeebrugge expertise meeting India's Gujarat hubs; in semiconductors, where IMEC's Leuven cleanrooms will train Indian engineers; and in defence, where joint exercises in the Arabian Sea are already slated for 2026.

Education emerged as the surprise topic as thirty new MoUs will send five hundred Indian STEM scholars to Flemish universities next autumn, their tuition funded by a revived Belgian plan.

The elephant in the room--India-EU FTA--lumbered forward. With EU negotiators camped in New Delhi until 7 November ironing out dairy quotas and data flows, George and Gentzis aligned talking points: a "balanced, fair and mutually beneficial" pact by spring 2026, with Belgium championing India's carbon-border concerns inside the Berlaymont.

Multilateral harmonies followed--G20 climate finance, UN Security Council reform, and a shared facilitation to iron out Red Sea shipping delays.

The joint communiqué promised quarterly virtual talks and a leaders' summit in 2026.

For the hundreds of Belgian firms eyeing India's infrastructure boom and the thousands of Indian students dreaming of Leuven's libraries, Brussels had just drawn the roadmap.

- IANS