External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar during a meeting with the India-Poland Parliamentary Group led by Poland MP Kinga Gajewska, in Warsaw on Friday. (ANI)
New Delhi: External Affairs Minister S. Jaishankar’s visit to Poland on Friday came at a moment when Europe is emerging as an increasingly important centre of geopolitical and economic power amid the continuing Russia-Ukraine war, conflicts in West Asia and a wider push by major economies to de-risk and diversify their strategic dependencies.
His talks in Warsaw with Polish Deputy Prime Minister and Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski therefore went beyond the consolidation of the India-Poland Strategic Partnership, highlighting New Delhi’s larger effort to deepen engagement with the European Union as an important pole in an increasingly multipolar world.
The External Affairs Minister’s visit has put Poland in a larger frame of India’s European strategy: not merely as a bilateral partner, but as an increasingly influential voice within the European Union (EU) that New Delhi now regards as a distinct pole in the emerging multipolar order.
Coming after he visits Ukraine the previous day, the engagement also placed India’s diplomacy at the intersection of Europe’s security crisis, the India-EU economic relationship and the global push towards diversified and resilient supply chains.
Addressing the media following his meeting with Sikorski, Jaishankar said that both sides reviewed the Action Plan that was agreed upon when Prime Minister Narendra Modi visited Warsaw two years ago.
“The report card that we got was a very solid one, indicating an uptick in trade and investments, deeper defence collaboration, expansion in traditional areas like mining and energy, as well as new possibilities emerging in space, digital, AI and innovation,” he said.
“Where mechanisms are concerned, our Foreign Office Consultations were held recently, the Joint Commission has met and as you heard from the Deputy Prime Minister, the defence working group will be doing so soon. We are working on agreements in many other domains including cyber security, space, clean coal, classified information, critical minerals, etc. And I am confident that they will add both texture and substance to our ties.”
But, more importantly, Jaishankar stressed the importance of Poland’s role in boosting the India-EU relationship.
“In the last few years, India’s ties with the European Union have deepened very visibly,” he said.
“The centre piece of that is of course the free trade agreement, which (EU) President Ursula Von Der Leyen described as the mother of all deals.”
The External Affairs Minister said that the world is moving towards increasing multi-polarity while focusing on de-risking and diversifying.
“India considers the European Union to be an important pole and our growing relationship is a notable part of the global restructuring that is underway,” he stated. “We are confident that Poland’s voice and Poland’s influence within the EU will encourage this trend.”
Jaishankar’s visit demonstrated that the India-Poland relationship is moving from a traditionally cordial but relatively underdeveloped relationship towards a broader strategic partnership.
Prime Minister Modi’s August 2024 visit to Poland – the first visit by an Indian Prime Minister to Poland in 45 years – marked a decisive turning point. The two countries elevated their relationship to a Strategic Partnership and adopted a five-year Action Plan for 2024-28.
That framework is now being translated into concrete areas of cooperation. Jaishankar’s assessment of the “report card” of the Action Plan is particularly important: he pointed to increased trade and investment, deeper defence cooperation and expansion into mining and energy, alongside emerging areas such as space, digital technologies, artificial intelligence and innovation.
Poland’s geopolitical importance has increased dramatically since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Located on NATO’s eastern flank and sharing borders with Ukraine and Belarus, Poland has become one of Europe’s most consequential security actors.
Warsaw is also undertaking a major military expansion. Poland is expected to spend around €53 billion on core defence in 2026, equivalent to about 4.7 per cent of GDP, while its armed forces have expanded beyond 220,000 personnel. Its emphasis on domestic defence production and resilient supply chains creates potential space for cooperation with India’s rapidly expanding defence-industrial sector.
This gives the defence component of the India-Poland partnership a new strategic context.
The larger significance of Jaishankar’s Warsaw visit lies in India’s increasingly strategic engagement with the European Union.
Jaishankar explicitly described the EU as an important pole in an emerging multipolar world and underlined Poland’s ability to influence the direction of the European bloc. This is a carefully calibrated recognition of Poland’s growing weight inside Europe.
The India-EU relationship has undergone a major transformation in 2026. Negotiations for the India-EU Free Trade Agreement were concluded on January 27, 2026, while the two sides have also continued cooperation through the Trade and Technology Council. The EU describes India as an important trade and investment partner, with bilateral goods trade reaching €118 billion in 2025.
Perhaps the most politically sensitive aspect of the visit was the Ukraine conflict.
Jaishankar travelled to Poland immediately after visiting Kyiv, making Warsaw a particularly important stop. Poland’s geographical proximity to Ukraine and its strong support for Kyiv mean that the war is viewed in Warsaw primarily through the prism of European security and the perceived threat from Russia.
India’s position is different. New Delhi maintains relations with both Moscow and Kyiv and has consistently argued that dialogue and diplomacy are necessary to end the conflict.
Jaishankar’s reiteration of Modi’s statement during a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Bishkek earlier this month that “endless war must give way to an end to war” represented both a reaffirmation of India’s longstanding position and an attempt to communicate it directly to an important European interlocutor.
He stressed that wars produce no winners and that every additional day brings greater human and economic costs.
The significance is that India is increasingly attempting to bridge the gap between its strategic autonomy and Europe’s security concerns rather than allowing differences over Ukraine to become an obstacle to the broader India-Europe relationship.
His visit to Kyiv, followed by Warsaw, also allowed India to demonstrate that its diplomatic engagement is not confined to one side of the conflict.
Robinder Sachdev, strategic affairs expert and president of the New Delhi-based Imagindia think tank, said that he looks at India’s engagement with Poland more through the lens of the European continent than through the EU.
“Poland is emerging as an economic and military power within Europe,” Sachdev told ETV Bharat. “And also, within both the European Union and NATO, it is influencing their policy.”
He explained that the background to this is that, in the Russia-Ukraine war, it’s the eastern European nations who are more aggressive and active, as compared to the western European nations.
“The eastern European nations or the eastern NATO bloc feel more threatened,” Sachdev said. “They are investing much more and actively ramping up their defence capabilities. There is a tussle between the western bloc and the eastern European nations. And of these, Poland is perhaps the main proponent of this stance.”
He further stated that for India, apart from building ties with India, it is also important to engage with European countries individually.
“With all these nations, we can do much more than what we are doing, including scientific exchanges, trade, technology transfer and all such,” Sachdev said. “Poland is emerging as an important node in India’s European engagements.”
Taken together, Jaishankar’s Warsaw visit can be seen as part of a larger recalibration of India’s European strategy.
The message from New Delhi is increasingly clear: Europe is not merely an economic partner for India; it is an increasingly important strategic pole in a multipolar world.
Poland occupies an interesting position within that strategy. It is simultaneously a frontline European security state, a NATO member, an influential EU country, an expanding military power, an emerging industrial and logistics hub and a country with which India has relatively little historical baggage.
That combination gives the relationship considerable room for growth.
The timing is equally important. Europe is reassessing its security architecture because of the Ukraine war, while India is attempting to diversify its strategic partnerships amid growing US-China competition, supply-chain disruptions and uncertainty over global trade.
Jaishankar’s Warsaw visit thus served three purposes at once: consolidating the India-Poland Strategic Partnership, strengthening India’s engagement with the EU through one of its increasingly influential members, and communicating India’s diplomatic approach to the major conflicts reshaping Europe and the wider world.