Belgium’s first prime ministerial visit to India in 20 years puts defence plants on the table

Belgian Prime Minister Bart De Wever is in India this week on the first visit by a Belgian premier in twenty years. He arrived on 2 September with Defence and Foreign Trade Minister Theo Francken and a delegation that includes 15 defence firms. Talks with Narendra Modi were set for 3 September. Mumbai and the Bharat Diamond Bourse follow on 4 September.

Two-way trade was $13.01 billion in 2025-26, up from $8.8 billion the year before. Belgian foreign direct investment into India from April 2000 to December 2025 is put at about $4.2 billion. Diamonds still sit at the centre of the ledger. Antwerp trades them. Indian workshops cut and polish them. That is why De Wever’s last day is booked in Mumbai rather than another round of Delhi banquet halls.

Defence is the new column. Francken met Rajnath Singh in New Delhi. Singh said the two sides reviewed the entire spectrum of defence relations and signed multiple industrial memoranda toward leveraging Belgian technology together with Indian skill and scale. A Letter of Intent covers training, officer exchanges, research, joint exercises and maritime security. The Belgian Defence College plans a world study trip to India in 2027.

Company-level papers are more specific. Reports from the visit list ten industry agreements spanning ammunition, naval mine systems, rockets, sensors, tanks, drones and marine engines. One of the larger items pairs Exail Belgium with Larsen and Toubro on autonomous systems for mine-countermeasure vessels. The first phase is described as 12 ships, with a longer programme that could run to 59. Belgian officials have also talked about producing Belgian-designed rockets in India.

The political frame is the India-EU free-trade negotiation. De Wever is due to speak at a Confederation of Indian Industry event on that deal. Belgium is a small member state with a large port and a large defence-electronics industry. A bilateral industrial map that already exists when the FTA is signed is more useful to both sides than a blank annex.

The visit sits on two earlier steps. A Belgian economic mission led by Princess Astrid in March 2025 brought 338 people and produced 38 memoranda. The first India-Belgium ministerial strategic dialogue was held in Brussels on 15 July, co-chaired by S. Jaishankar and Belgian foreign minister Maxime Prevot. Francken’s public line this week was blunt: trust exists, and it now has to become training, plants and contracts rather than non-binding declarations.

De Wever took office in February 2025. This is his first trip to India in the job. For New Delhi the week is another European defence supplier walking into the same room as Indian yards and ordnance factories. For Brussels it is a chance to park Belgian firms inside India’s procurement plans while Europe re-arms. The documents signed on 3 September will be the measure. Speeches will not.

Diamonds, ports and defence electronics are three different businesses that happen to share a flag. The visit treats them as one relationship. That is a Belgian habit. Whether Indian procurement officers treat them the same way will show up in the next set of contracts, not in the joint photographs.