“The mother of all deals” is a transformative milestone in Indo-EU trade relations. Elaborate on the new Security and Defence partnership.

The phrase belongs to European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen, who described the India-EU free trade agreement as the mother of all deals during the visit of the College of Commissioners to Delhi in February 2025 — an unusual visit, since the entire Commission travelled to a single partner country. Negotiations, begun in 2007, were suspended in 2013 and relaunched in 2022, and the EU is among India's largest trading partners taken as a bloc.

Why the security and defence pillar is the significant development. The EU has concluded Security and Defence Partnerships with a small number of countries, and extending one to India converts a relationship long defined by trade and values into a strategic one. Its content covers:

• Maritime security. Coordination in the Indian Ocean, joint naval exercises, and cooperation between the Indian Navy and Operation Atalanta on anti-piracy in the Gulf of Aden, together with the wider Coordinated Maritime Presences approach.
• Cyber security and hybrid threats. Cooperation on critical infrastructure, disinformation and standards, building on the earlier cyber dialogue.
• Defence industrial cooperation. European access to India's defence manufacturing push and Indian access to European technology, which matters most as India diversifies away from a single supplier.
• Counter-terrorism and space, including cooperation on situational awareness.
• Connectivity as security. The India-Middle East-Europe Economic Corridor announced at the 2023 G-20 links the trade and security agendas.

Assessment. The convergence is driven by shared exposure — Chinese economic coercion, supply chain vulnerability and Russian revisionism — but the two sides read the last of these differently, and India's continued defence and energy relationship with Russia remains the honest limit on how far the partnership can go.