At the meeting, think tanks from Europe & India shared their experiences, lessons and findings on research papers focusing on security & urbanization cooperation between the EU and India. The group also discussed on further steps to take it to the next level.

The workshop was opened by Mr. Cesare Onestini, Deputy Head of Delegation. These were followed by presentations by the think tanks:

a) “Pilot EU-India Policy Dialogues on Global Governance and Security” by Global Public Policy Institute (GPPi) and Carnegie India (CEIP) - C. Xavier, Fellow, CEIP
b) “Moving Forward the EU-India Security Dialogue: Traditional and Emerging Issues” by Istituto Affari Internazionali (IAI) and Gateway House – Indian Council on Global Relations (GH)
- S. Benaglia, Associate Fellow, IAI, and S. Patil, GH
c) “The EU, India and International Security Cooperation” by Chatham House and the Observer Research Foundation (ORF) with the EU Institute for Security Studies (EUISS)
- S. Saran, Vice President, Fellow, and H. V. Pant, Distinguished Fellow, ORF
d) “EU-India Cooperation on Sustainable Urbanisation” by Global Relations Forum (GRF)

Mr.Christian Leffler, Deputy Secretary General for Economic and Global Issues at the European External Action Service (EEAS) shared his views on the "EU foreign policy and future of EU-India
relations. On EU's Global strategy he said that "security, resilience of states and societies, integrated conflict and crises, developing cooperative regional orders and global governance are the five core priorities and European Union is strongly committed to turning these into concrete deliverables." On EU-India relationship, he mentioned "EU-India summit has provided new momentum to the Strategic Partnership. EU-India summit also adopted EU India action 2020 & we are keen to take the agreed agenda & relationship forward"

Panelists also discussed "EU Global Strategy & its implication for Asia & South Asia".

In 2015, events and workshop were organised in Delhi and Brussels to identify the relevant think tanks and create an engagement plan for them. Orientation meetings were held both in Delhi and Brussels followed by a conference in Delhi (2-3 November 2015) which brought together more than 40 Indian and European organisations to discuss about the EU priority topics with focus on India-EU relations. Twinning of EU and India based think tanks was facilitated in 2016.

Read the full speech below by Mr. Christian Leffler, Deputy Secretary General, EEAS on EU foreign policy & future of EU-India relations at the 'Think Tank Twinning Initiative' Final Workshop in Taj Palace Hotel, New Delhi on 17 January 2017