For Germany and India, forging closer relations is not easy

Top German politicians have a new favorite travel destination: India. Following the recent visit by Foreign Minister Johann Wadephul, Chancellor Friedrich Merz is heading to New Delhi on Sunday with a larger delegation.

The reasons for Germany's heightened interest in the world's most populous country (India has about 1.45 billion people) are both economic and geopolitical: According to a prognosis from the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development , the Indian economy will grow significantly more than China's this year. Germany, meanwhile, has been stuck in recession for almost three years.

Germany is also desperately looking for skilled workers — and is finding more and more of them in India. Meanwhile, Indians have become the largest group of foreign students at German universities.

"India's strengths are primarily in the services sector," said Christian Wagner, India specialist at the Berlin-based German Institute for International and Security Affairs (SWP). "India serves as the office of the global economy. China, on the other hand, is more like the factory of the global economy."

India has undergone rapid development in the process, Wagner told DW. "It began with the call centers. Now it is the research facilities. Many large German companies have outsourced their research institutes to India. And the Indian students who come to us mostly do degrees in science and engineering."

Germany's trade with India has grown significantly in recent years, hitting €29 billion ($33.7 billion) in 2024, the most recent figures available. But that is still only a fraction of Germany's trade volume with China, which stood at around €246 billion in the same year.

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Security concerns mean that trading with China has become increasingly problematic for Germany, while import tariffs have made trading with the US more difficult.

Merz described the new global political situation in a speech delivered to German ambassadors at the Foreign Ministry last year. "What we called the liberal world order is now under pressure from many sides, also from inside the political West," he said, without directly naming US President Donald Trump's tariff policies, which have also damaged the German economy. Not only that, Merz is concerned that Trump's defense policy could turn the US away from Europe.

On Russia and China, Merz told the ambassadors that new revisionist alliances were emerging, crises and conflicts were overlapping and war had returned to Europe. Though the German government wanted to cooperate with Beijing, he said, there was also an increasing systemic rivalry with China.

The World Trade Organization doesn't work anymore, Merz said, and Germany and the Europeans must now build a new system of rules-based trade themselves.

This is where India comes in. For the sake of Germany's security and competitiveness, Merz said, diversifying raw material supply chains and trading networks must be a priority. To achieve this, Germany needed more and better partnerships with major countries like India.

"In the coming weeks, I will embark on a series of trips to our partners beyond the trans-Atlantic region," the chancellor announced. "The intention is to signal our guiding principle of strategic partnerships."

But the relationship with India is not without problems, especially on the issue of Russian aggression. German attempts to draw India to the side of the countries that condemn the Russian invasion of Ukraine and impose sanctions on Moscow have failed. Not only that, India buys Russian oil and sells it on to Western countries, thereby circumventing EU sanctions against Russia.

Merz probably won't be able to change anything about that, Wagner believes. "I think it is comparatively difficult to bring India to the West's side. That would, I think, not succeed; rather, India will stick with its course of strategic autonomy and therefore continue to maintain good relations with Russia," he said.

Merz has in the past advocated for tariffs against countries that trade with Russia, though he has never named India specifically. This is a point of agreement between him and Trump, who in late August 2025 raised tariffs on goods from India to 50%, one of the highest rates for a US trading partner, over New Delhi's continued purchase of Russian oil.

Meanwhile, US and Indian officials are negotiating a settlement of the conflict and Trump has recently been more conciliatory toward India. But the South Asian country is holding on strongly to its close trading relationship with Russia.

New Delhi and Moscow have had close defense relations for decades. According to Russian sources, they are currently negotiating for increased deliveries of Russian S-400 surface-to-air missiles to India.

"About 60 to 70% of India's armed forces continue to depend on Russian military equipment," said Wagner. "Russia is considered a very reliable partner in the defense sector. We must also bear in mind: Western armaments are much more expensive than Russian ones, and they come with more conditions." Western firearms, for example, are not supposed to be used to suppress a domestic uprising.

France, however, has succeeded in securing big weapons deals with India. In 2025, both countries agreed to a €6.6-billion ($7.74-billion) deal for the delivery of 26 Rafale fighter jets to India. France ranks second behind Russia when it comes to arms deliveries to India. Germany, on the other hand, is much further down the list of exporters.

India's government is expected to modernize its armed forces comprehensively in the coming years, and the German government hopes, among other things, to secure orders for the Airbus A400M military transport aircraft and for submarines from German shipyards.

This article was originally written in German.

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