Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever will land in New Delhi on September 2 for a three-day visit — the first by a Belgian head of government to India in two decades, and his own first since taking office in February 2025.
The timing is no accident. De Wever’s visit slots in right before India assumes the BRICS chairship on September 12-13, adding to an already packed September of Indian diplomacy that began with PM Modi’s SCO Summit trip to Bishkek.
For New Delhi, hosting a European head of government just ahead of BRICS sends its own signal — that India’s multi-alignment strategy has room for both Moscow and Brussels in the same fortnight.
WHAT’S DRIVING THE VISIT?
De Wever isn’t travelling alone. He’s bringing Theo Francken, Belgium’s Minister of Defence and Foreign Trade,
along with a delegation of officials and business leaders — including representatives from Belgian defence industries. That’s the detail worth watching: defence cooperation, until recently a modest footnote in India-Belgium ties, is now being explicitly positioned as a new strategic pillar. Belgium’s decision to post a Defence Attaché in New Delhi is being read as an early marker of that shift.
The visit builds on two recent milestones — the Belgian Economic Mission led by Princess Astrid in March 2025, which produced 38 MoUs, and the inaugural India-Belgium Strategic Dialogue held in Brussels this July, co-chaired byEAM Dr. S. Jaishankar and Belgian Deputy PM Maxime Prévot. Officials describe this trip as the moment to convert that momentum into “concrete outcomes” — moving the relationship beyond trade and into a fuller strategic partnership.
THE NUMBERS
- Bilateral trade: USD 13.01 billion (2025-26)
- Belgian FDI into India: ~USD 4.2 billion (April 2000-December 2025)
- Indian students in Belgium: 1,131
- Indian diaspora in Belgium: ~35,000
Diamonds remain central to the relationship, with Antwerp still one of the world’s key diamond hubs — which is why De Wever’s itinerary includes a stop in Mumbai on September 4, with a visit to the Bharat Diamond Bourse.
BEYOND TRADE: TECH, PORTS AND WWI HISTORY
The relationship’s newer pillars include clean energy — Belgian firm John Cockerill is building a 2 GW electrolyser facility in Kakinada — and space science, with Belgian company AMOS having helped build one of the world’s largest liquid mirror telescopes at ARIES, Nainital. On maritime cooperation, an MoU between India’s Ministry of Shipping and the Antwerp Port Authority already trains Indian port officials.
There’s also a shared history angle Indian audiences may not know well: over 9,000 Indian soldiers died fighting in Flanders during World War I, commemorated at the Indian Memorial Pillar at Menin Gate in Ypres — a legacy Belgian officials often invoke to underline the “historic” framing of the ties.
Belgium also backs India’s bid for a permanent UN Security Council seat, and this visit is expected to reinforce Brussels’ role as a bridge to deepen India-EU relations more broadly — relevant context as India and the EU continue working toward a long-pending free trade agreement.
BOTTOM LINE
This isn’t a ceremonial visit. Coming right before India’s BRICS chairship, with a defence minister and industry delegation in tow, De Wever’s trip reads as India quietly building out its European partnerships — trade, defence and technology together — even as its BRICS and Global South engagements dominate headlines this month.
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