India-Poland ties: Time to deliver

The challenge is to overcome commercial barriers and manage differences over Ukraine through sustained engagement and tangible results

As Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk visits India after more than fifteen years, it is time to renew the friendship once again. For a long time, India-Poland relations have been low-key, but now the ties are warmer than ever before.

Since Narendra Modi’s 2024 Warsaw visit, the first by an Indian prime minister in 45 years, the two countries have been strategic partners working towards a 2024-28 action plan. The talks at Hyderabad House produced four agreements and a promise to double bilateral trade, now worth about $6.3 billion, by 2030 by leveraging the India-EU free trade agreement.

The agenda runs from defence co-production and drones to satellites, civil nuclear energy, semiconductors, critical minerals and battery recycling.

Tariff wars have pushed Warsaw to look for trusted partners beyond its traditional ones, and India, a fast-growing market with rising technological and defence-manufacturing strength, fits the bill. Poland, now a trillion-dollar economy and a frontline state in Europe’s security, offers New Delhi a gateway to the European market and a willing defence-industrial partner. Both want supply chains that do not depend on a single supplier or a single power.

The differences are real and should be acknowledged. The first is Ukraine. Poland is among Kyiv’s staunchest backers; India has avoided condemning Moscow and maintains deep defence ties with it. Modi again offered support for every meaningful effort towards peace, while Tusk had said he wanted to discuss drawing India into efforts to end the war.

Both sides chose to leave the gap alone, which is sensible, but a defence partnership cannot dodge it forever. The second issue is commercial. Trade is limited and tilted towards Indian exports, and Polish firms find India’s bureaucracy daunting. The third is mobility: Poland’s shortage of healthcare workers and India’s skilled workforce are a natural fit, but visas and recognition rules must now deliver results. The way forward is delivery. Bring the FTA into force quickly. Move defence cooperation from encouraging industries to find opportunities to a few funded co-production projects, including drones and munitions, with real technology transfer.

Open a single window for Polish mid-sized firms in India and Indian IT firms in Poland. Tusk now takes that pitch to Bengaluru’s technology and space firms. Hold regular leader-level and ministerial meetings so the agenda does not wait another sixteen years.

What the friendship means is simple. For Poland, India is a growth market and a hedge in an unpredictable world. For India, Poland is a door into the European Union and a capable defence-industrial partner.

India sheltered thousands of Polish children during the Second World War, and Warsaw helped bring Indian students out of Ukraine in 2022. This friendship, therefore, goes beyond trade and strategy, though the two countries still need to agree on many global issues, including Ukraine.