Modi's Berlin visit signals Asian pivot for Atlanticist Merkel

Record ID: 877220

  • Title: Modi's Berlin visit signals Asian pivot for Atlanticist Merkel
  • Date: 29th May 2017
  • Summary: MESEBERG, GERMANY (MAY 29, 2017) (REUTERS) EXTERIOR OF SCHLOSS MESEBERG GERMAN, INDIAN AND EU FLAGS HELICOPTERS CARRYING INDIAN PRIME MINISTER NARENDRA MODI ARRIVING MEDIA GERMAN CHANCELLOR ANGELA MERKEL AND MODI WALKING TO CASTLE ENTRANCE MERKEL AND MODI ON STEPS TALKING / GOING INSIDE VARIOUS OF MERKEL AND MODI WALKING THOUGH THE GARDENS MEDIA VARIOUS OF MERKEL AND MODI TALKING IN GARDEN MEDIA VARIOUS OF MERKEL AND MODI WALKING THROUGH GARDEN
  • Embargoed: 12th June 2017 19:09
  • Keywords: Modi Merkel Germany India
  • Location: MESEBERG, GERMANY
  • City: MESEBERG, GERMANY
  • Country: Germany
  • Reuters ID: LVA0016IW4KEF
  • Aspect Ratio: 16:9
  • Story Text:India has expressed keen interest in attracting more German companies to invest and improve bilateral relations, and this will likely be one of the talking points on Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi's two-day visit to Europe's leading economic power that begins on Monday (May 29).
    Modi's arrival comes a day after German Chancellor Angela Merkel shocked many in Washington and London by saying Europe must take its fate into its own hands, implying that the United States under President Donald Trump and Britain after its Brexit vote were no longer reliable partners.
    Chinese Premier Li Keqiang also visits Berlin this week, and the arrival of two leaders of rising Asian powers in the wake of Merkel's speech has prompted talk of an eastern pivot in previously firmly Atlanticist Germany.
    "Both (the German and Indian) governments are firmly committed to strengthening economic relations," Modi said in an interview with Handelsblatt newspaper. "I am very optimistic about our future partnership."
    Merkel's remarks, made to her Christian Democrat party's Bavarian allies in Munich, were all the more striking since Merkel, a fan of the United States as a teenager in Communist East Germany, has always been known as a convinced Atlanticist.
    In China and India, Merkel saw the possibility of a partnership in favour of action to slow climate change and to promote free trade, noted Handelsblatt, the newspaper of Germany's business elite.
    "After the disappointing G7 summit, the German chancellor is turning her hopes for free trade and climate protection to India and China," the paper wrote on its front page on Monday.
  • Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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