New Delhi, Jan 29 (Inditop.com) Ahead of its President Horst Koehler’s visit here next week, a disappointed Germany Friday said India’s decision to cancel a tender for multi-role tanker aircraft was a “nasty surprise” and alleged that considerations other than quality and performance influenced it.
Germany also pitched for greater defence cooperation between the two countries and underlined that it will not insist on an end-user monitoring agreement, as was the case with the US, for selling high-tech weaponry to India.
“It came as a little bit of a nasty surprise for us and very disappointing that it was rejected at the political level,” German Ambassador Thomas Matussek told reporters here.
“This rejection was not explained to us in detail. It appears that quality, performance of the system, state of the technology, reliability – just to name a few – were not exactly the criteria,” the envoy said.
“The selection was done only on the label price as it stands,” Matussek added.
India had cancelled a tender to buy six mid-air refuelling aircraft for fighter jets in which the European consortium EADS Airbus 330 MRTT was the top contender.
The envoy pitched for German high-end defence technology and stressed it would help India achieve the objective of a more independent defence industry. “We will not insist on monitoring requirements or on-the-spot verification,” he said.
“We offer technology transfer far beyond our competitors,” he said.
Defence and security cooperation will be among important issues that will be discussed during the German president’s weeklong visit to India that begins Feb 1.
“The president wants to give a signal that we want to further enhance and deepen our strategic partnership with India,” the envoy said.
Koehler will meet President Pratibha Patil, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and other leaders here Feb 2 and also top business leaders in Mumbai.
The focus will be on closer partnership in addressing a host of global challenges, including international terrorism, climate change and poverty reduction, the German envoy said.
The two sides may also explore possibilities of civil nuclear cooperation. The German envoy said his country was ready for civil nuclear cooperation with India if the Indian side requested for it.
Koehler, a former head of the International Monetary Fund, will share his views with Indian leaders on the global financial crisis and reform of international financial institutions.
He will visit the Reserve Bank of India in Mumbai and interact with top Indian industrialists in India’s financial hub.
