Spanish envoy Jose Maria Ridao on Monday expressed delight over the arrival of the first C-295 military transport aircraft to India from Spain and asserted that Madrid would like to be a “very trusted bilateral partner” for New Delhi. The aircraft was inducted into the Indian Air Force in a ceremony at the Hindan Air Force Station on Monday.
Ridao attended the ceremony, which took place in the presence of Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari and senior officials of the Indian Air Force (IAF) and those from Airbus and Tata Advanced Systems (TASL).
The medium tactical transport aircraft arrived in Vadodara on September 20, days after it was handed over to the IAF in the southern Spanish city of Seville, where Airbus has a facility.
“The first plane (C-295) coming from Spain in this programme, and we are very happy, and at the same time, we are very engaged with this programme … we think that it is a great opportunity to become an important partner for India in this particular area, which is defence industry. So it is a great day, a great day for Tata, for Airbus, Spain, and also for India,” the Spanish envoy told PTI.
Sixteen aircraft will arrive in India from Spain. During this time, TASL will prepare its production and assembly for the rest of the planes here. Forty planes will be made in India under the programme, he said.
Spain and the Spanish government are very engaged with this programme because it is also “an opportunity to share technology with our partners”. For Spain, it is a “great honour” to be a partner of India in this particular field, Ridao said.
Airbus will deliver the first 16 aircraft in fly-away condition from its final assembly line in Seville by 2025 and the subsequent 40 planes will be manufactured and assembled by TASL in India as part of an industrial partnership between the two companies.
The Spanish envoy also spoke about the Indian Navy’s P75(I) submarine programme.
“We are also working on submarines … We hope that we will be the country and the company chosen for preparing these submarines for India,” he said.
The defence ministry is in the process of procuring six domestically built conventional submarines for the Indian Navy. The construction of the submarines will take place in India and is expected to have significant local content.
Larsen & Toubro and Spain’s defence major Navantia in July inked a “teaming agreement” to jointly bid for the programme.
“When Spain engages in one particular date to deliver the product, we can be trusted, because we deliver this product to India. So, this is the main lesson. I would like to underline, the engagement of Spain is always trusted and always accomplished,” he added.
Ridao said India is perceived in the world now as “a huge country”. So, Spain is “very conscious about this image of India”.
At the same time, Spain does not want to “reduce our relations” to trade, commerce or even this important area of defence.
“… We will like to have a holistic approach. India is much more than a market. We are very happy that in fact having this partnership in the defence industry but also we would like to strengthen our relationship in terms of culture … we think, have to work a lot, for instance, in (the area of) visas … It’s an important issue,” the Spanish envoy said.
“That’s why we are improving our consulates here (in India). We will open our consulate in Bangalore. We will improve our consular section in Delhi. We are waiting for permission of the Indian government. We gave them (Indian side) permission in August to open (a consulate) in Barcelona. And we are waiting for our consulate in Bangalore,” he said.
There is a consular section in New Delhi, consulate general in Mumbai and there will also be a consulate general in Bangalore, he added.
On diplomatic ties between the two countries, Ridao said multilateral initiatives, such as the G20 and others, are very important.
“But we try to convey the idea that being important to be members of these initiatives but it is also important to be bilateral partners,” he said.
“So, we would like to be a very trusted bilateral partner with India. And the proof is that sectors in which we are working, for instance, defence industry, but also in cultural aspects, consular aspects, are also important,” Ridao said.
He emphasised on cooperation in the culture sector and said Spain will be delighted to “collaborate and cooperate” with India to share experiences in the public domain, which are UNESCO heritage sites.
Spain has one of the largest number of UNESCO World Heritage Sites.
In Delhi, Spain has a cultural centre — Instituto Cervantes.
“We don’t have a nationalistic approach to culture in India. In the sense, we are not trying to show ourselves, proud of our culture. We are trying to show a different thing. Culture is a common human heritage, Spain contributed a lot, and India also contributed a lot. We would like to share with India, not our culture, but our contribution to the cultural common heritage. So, this is our approach,” he said.
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