Two senior German Ministers, Minister of Defence Ursula von der Leyen and Minister of Economic Affairs and Energy Sigmar Gabriel, are not accompanying Chancellor Angela Merkel on her three-day trip to Delhi and Bengaluru, The Hindu has learnt.
With the exclusion of these two top ministers, the Cabinet delegation accompanying Ms. Merkel has been reduced to four members. The last-minute decision to leave out the two ministers led to speculation in policy circles, but sources on both German and Indian sides refused to elaborate on the reasons behind it. High-level official sources in South Block said the cancellations were due to “scheduling problems”.
In view of the cancellations, doubts have been raised about the defence-related discussions that were to take place between India and Germany. Dismissing the concerns, Ministry of External Affairs Spokesperson Vikas Swarup said Ms. von der Leyen had visited India as recently as May 27-28, along with a 30-member team, and discussed all possibilities, especially in the field of naval cooperation.
However, Commodore (retired) C. Uday Bhaskar, Director, Society for Policy Studies (SPS), told The Hindu that the cancellation of Ms. von der Leyen’s visit hints that the governments of India and Germany have not reached a conclusion on their key conventional submarines contract.
“The cancellation of the Defence Minister’s visit indicates that nothing major on defence front will be announced during the visit of Chancellor Merkel,” Mr. Bhaskar said.
Earlier, German Ambassador Martin Ney had informed the media that the two ministers will travel as part of the high-level delegation from German cabinet accompanying Dr. Merkel in the Inter-Governmental Dialogue with India and China. Ambassador Ney had said Germany was tracking the process of acquisition of six conventional submarines and will bid for them when India begins the tendering process.
Mr. Bhaskar said despite the cancellation of Ms. von der Leyen’s visit, there is a lot happening between the two countries, especially on the naval front, as India has more than 25 years of experience in handling German submarines and naval platforms.
Ms. von der Leyen, who is a charismatic politician and the first woman Defence Minister of Germany, was recently in news related to alleged plagiarism of her doctoral dissertation. Sources in the German embassy told The Hindu that the main reason that prompted the exclusion of Ms. von der Leyen and Mr. Sigmar Gabriel is the crisis of sudden influx of refugees from Syria and northern Africa to Germany and other central and east European countries.
Mr. Gabriel, who is also the Vice-Chancellor, is staying back in Berlin to deal with the situation arising out of the refugee crisis and the political debates on immigration and asylum taking place in Germany, the sources said.
