Republic Day is around the corner and it’s time to know all about the visit of India’s Chief Guest to mark the 77th anniversary of the adoption of the Constitution of India. This year, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen will be the chief guest at the 77th Republic Day, who will be in India on a three-day visit from January 25 to 27. She will be accompanied by the President of the European Council, António Luís Santos da Costa.
The two leaders will jointly chair the 16th India-EU Summit. Ursula von der Leyen is set to hold “limited and delegation-level talks” with Prime Minister Narendra Modi on January 27 on the sidelines of a much-anticipated free trade deal. The duo will also meet Indian President Droupadi Murmu. As India and the European Union move forward in negotiations on a trade deal under Trump’s tariff policy, it is expected that the two sides could move closer to signing the deal after years of negotiations.
Ursula von der Leyen is a German politician and doctor who took office in 2019 as President of the European Commission. Before that, she held several positions in the German federal government between 2005 and 2019. Before joining the European Commission, she served as Federal Minister of Defense in Angela Merkel’s cabinet.
A member of the center-right Christian Democratic Union (CDU) and its associated European political party, the European People’s Party (EPP), was re-elected as head of the Commission in July 2024.
She was born on October 8, 1958 in Brussels, Belgium and was raised bilingually. Her father was the CEO of the food company Bahlsen and was involved in state politics in Lower Saxony. She moved to Sehnde, Germany during her early teens. An avid equestrian, she married Heiko von der Leyen in 1986, who comes from a family of silk merchants.
Ursula von der Leyen calls highly anticipated free trade deal talks ‘mother of all deals’
On Tuesday, while addressing the ongoing World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, the European Commission President said that India and the European Union are on the verge of a “historic trade deal” that would create a market of 2 billion people. She went on to note that this market would thus represent almost a quarter of global GDP, as she called the much-anticipated negotiations “the mother of all deals”.
Highlighting the scope of the critical deal for India and the 27-member EU, she said: “I will go to India. There is still work to be done. But we are on the verge of a historic trade deal. Some call it the mother of all deals.” The European Union is India’s largest trading partner, and the FTA is expected to significantly strengthen relations after negotiations broke down in 2013 and subsequent attempts at a deal.
