External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar meets Ireland’s Foreign Minister and Tanaiste Simon Harris in Dublin on March 8, 2025. Photo: X/@DrSJaishankar
India and Ireland agreed to establish a Joint Economic Commission (JEC) to coordinate on trade and international economic issues like the World Trade Organisation (WTO) after talks between External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar and Ireland’s Foreign Minister and Tánaiste (Deputy Prime Minister ) Simon Harris in Dublin. The JEC is expected to meet once in two years at the level of senior officials, and a formal agreement is expected to be signed later this year.
The announcement of the JEC came days after a visit by the European Union’s College of Commissioners led by EC President Ursula Von Der Leyen, where India and the EU, which Ireland is a member of, agreed to finalise their long pending Bilateral Trade Agreement (BTA) by the end of 2025.
The two Ministers “reviewed the entire spectrum of bilateral cooperation and key global and regional matters of mutual interest”, said the Ministry of External Affairs in a statement on Saturday, adding that apart from progress in trade, education, and people to people exchanges, the Ministers discussed expanding collaboration in Higher Education and new and emerging sectors including in “cyber security, AI, Fin-tech, and semiconductors”.
Ireland is home to about half the world’s top 30 semiconductor companies in terms of revenue, an area India is keen to build a presence in. Bilateral trade between India and Ireland stands at about 16 Billion Euros (17.33 bn USD) at present.
“The move [to establish the Joint Economic Commission] builds on longstanding links and cooperation between the two countries and offers an opportunity to consult on trade and economic issues and increase awareness of both countries and their respective economic priorities among key decision makers,” said the Irish Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) about the meeting that took place on Friday, adding that they also discussed Ireland’s “Action Plan” for bilateral ties.
In a statement issued after the meeting with Mr. Jaishankar, Mr. Harris said that they had discussed India-EU ties, and “global issues such as Russia’s war of aggression in Ukraine, the situations in the Middle East and the Indo-Pacific region and common challenges such as climate change”.
According to a Diplomatic Exchange programme signed during the visit by Irish Ambassador to Delhi Kevin Kelly, and Indian Ambassador to Dublin Akhilesh Mishra, the two countries will send diplomats to each other’s capitals every year as well.
Mr. Jaishankar, who was on a week-long visit to UK and Ireland said that India and Ireland share a “special connection” as two countries occupied by the same “colonial power” [United Kingdom], and Ireland was the only country in Europe where leaders spoke for Indian independence. He also visited the General Post Office in Dublin, which was the centre of the Irish fight for freedom in 1916, known as Easter Rising.
“When we look at how the Irish themselves have built the nation, their freedom struggle, how they have revived their culture, because the colonial period, you know, [the] colonial power tried to erase the culture…there is so much worth knowing, worth learning, worth thinking about,” he said, speaking at an event for the Indian community in Dublin on March 6.
The two-day visit by Mr. Jaishankar, is the first such visit by an Indian Foreign Minister to Ireland and the first high level visit in a decade, after PM Narendra Modi’s visit in 2015. Later this month, a senior delegation led by Education Minister James Lawless is also expected to travel to India. The number of Indian students in Ireland has grown rapidly from about 700 in 2013 to nearly 7,000 in 2023, while Ireland’s Indian immigrant population has grown 170% in total since 2016, estimated to be about 30,000, part of the larger Indian community of about 80,000 today.
Published – March 08, 2025 09:32 pm IST