Modi, Belgian PM De Wever Ink Defence and Renewable Energy Pacts at Delhi Summit

Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever held delegation-level talks at Hyderabad House in New Delhi on Thursday, marking the first visit by a Belgian head of government to India in two decades and De Wever's first trip to the country since taking office in February 2025.

What Was Discussed

The two leaders reviewed the full range of bilateral ties, with officials on both sides describing the conversation as wide-ranging rather than narrowly transactional. Areas on the table included defence cooperation, trade and investment flows, innovation partnerships, semiconductors, fintech, access to critical minerals, and academic and research collaboration. People-to-people exchanges also featured prominently, reflecting a broader push by both governments to deepen ties beyond government-to-government contact.

Agreements Signed

Modi and De Wever witnessed the exchange of memoranda of understanding covering four areas: defence, renewable energy, cooperation on combating crime, and the establishment of a diplomatic training partnership between the two countries' foreign services. None of the MoUs were framed as headline mega-deals, but taken together they suggest an attempt to build institutional plumbing between India and Belgium across security, clean energy and law-enforcement channels.

The Trade Target

Perhaps the most concrete commitment to emerge from the summit was an agreement to double bilateral trade between India and Belgium over the next five years. To support that goal, the two sides agreed to set up a dedicated business forum, an investment forum, and a consular dialogue mechanism. Belgium is a significant entry point for Indian goods into the European Union, and Antwerp in particular has long-standing ties to India's diamond and gems trade, making the trade push a natural extension of an existing commercial relationship rather than an entirely new one.

Why the Timing Matters

De Wever's visit comes as India continues to negotiate a broader free trade agreement with the European Union, of which Belgium is a founding member and home to the EU's institutional headquarters in Brussels. A warmer bilateral relationship with individual EU capitals is widely seen in New Delhi as useful groundwork for the larger, more complex EU-India trade negotiation, even though the two tracks are formally separate. The semiconductor and critical minerals references in Thursday's discussions also fit a pattern of India seeking to diversify its technology and raw-material partnerships away from overreliance on any single bloc.

What Comes Next

Neither side released detailed timelines for implementing the MoUs, and the business and investment forums announced on Thursday will need to be formally constituted before trade figures are likely to move. De Wever's visit continues through the rest of the week, with his delegation expected to hold additional meetings with Indian industry representatives before departing. For now, the summit's significance lies less in any single deliverable and more in signalling that both governments see enough value in the relationship to invest diplomatic capital in rebuilding a channel that had gone quiet for twenty years.

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