India-Italy virtual summit to strengthen defence ties

An Indian-Italian bilateral virtual Summit today comes close on the heels of last week's MoU signed between the Italian private ship manufacturer Fincantieri and the Indian Government-owned Cochin Shipyard Limited (CSL) – a Defence public sector unit, involved in the construction of the Indian Navy's first indigenous aircraft carrier 'Vikrant'.

'Vikrant', which is in its Phase-3 of construction dealing with propulsion and power generation will be assisted by Fincantieri in its engine design and integration under this MoU.

Its interesting to note that this MoU finds a mention in the October 2018 joint statement of Italian Prime Minister Giuseppe Conte's India visit, "Both sides recognized the need to broad base defence ties and make them enduring and mutually beneficial. India invited Italian defence equipment manufacturing companies to invest in India under the Make-in-India initiative and to collaborate with Indian companies for design and construction of defence equipment."

This Summit comes at an opportune time considering the Indian-Italian diplomatic ties that went into deep freeze post the Italian marines case of February 2012 where two Kerala fishermen were accidentally shot dead in the waters off-Kerala by Italian marines – Massimiliano Latorre and Salvatore Girone onboard 'Enrica Lexie'.

The case presently in the International  Tribunal for the Law of the Sea (ITLOS) court in Hamburg, Germany, was earlier in the Permanent Court of Arbitrage at The Hague in Netherlands, where it was transferred from the Supreme Court of India, at the behest of Italy. The marines defended themselves by making claims that the fishermen were mistaken to be pirates and that the incident took place in international waters.

Former Minister of External Affairs late Sushma Swaraj thawed the relations in 2016 after her first Italian visit post the incident, which was followed by incoming visits by Italian Prime Ministers in 2017  and 2018, but none till now from the Indian side since Modi Government took charge.

“It was the Indian Prime Minister’s turn to reciprocate the visit, but due to the pandemic its happening virtually, but it’s a good opportunity to discuss pending issues and finalise them, especially the defence cooperation agreement. Given the trade and investment to the tune of Euro 9.52 billion, this Summit will prove useful in discussing the India-EU free trade agreement (FTA). Europe’s Indo-Pacific policy is another important topic,” says former Indian Ambassador to Italy Anil Wadhwa.

Italy is India’s 5th largest trading partner in the EU, after Germany, Belgium, UK and France. Around 600 large Italian companies are active in India, covering varied sectors such as fashion and garments, textiles and textile machinery, automotive components, infrastructure, chemicals, energy confectionery, insurance etc.

India will host the G-20 Summit in 2022 , while Italy is the G-20 host in 2021, therefore notes pertaining to coordination, theme, cooperation about the same could be exchanged at the Summit.

The bilateral defence cooperation agreement for which negotiations are on, is not about interoperability like India has with US, Japan, South Korea, Singapore, Australia , but is more about forming joint ventures in manufacturing as a  private-public partnership aimed at boosting the Indian industry.

Retired Vice Admiral Anup Singh says, “The contract with Fincantieri long precedes the Italian Marines case. And it is not about engines, but about propulsion system integration. Fincantieri was chosen after an open selection process as the oversight contractor for integration of the entire propulsion system.”

Fincantieri, which happens to be the largest shipbuilder in Europe and the fourth largest in the world, will also provide a supply of complementary services to the aircraft carrier Vikrant. The Indian Navy operates two fleet tankers 'Deepak' and 'Shakti' and a research vessel 'Sagar Nidhi' built for the National Institute of Ocean Technology, all of which are Fincantieri products.

The Fincantieri-CSL MoU will further conceptualise into detailed streamlining of supplies, systems, components, training, design & construction of new vessels, marketing of mechanical products like shaft lines, propulsion propellers, stabilization and steering systems etc.

The first indigenous aircraft carrier Vikrant with its length of over 260 mtrs and breadth of 60 mtrs, capable of operating STOBAR aircraft including the indigenous LCA, has two take-off runways and a landing strip with three arrester wires,. Vikrant’s basic design has been done by the Indian Navy's Directorate of Naval Design and was developed into a detailed one by the design team of CSL. Vikrant is scheduled for commissioning in early 2021 and get fully operationalized by 2022..