Tomasz Kozlowski, the ambassador of the European Union, has said that post-Brexit the interest in India to strengthen relationship with EU has increased and EU is now perceived as a much more relevant partner.

 He said Britain’s exit will not affect EU, it will only present different type of challenges and difficulties. He added the European integration is a political project and the strong will among member states to continue is strong.

There is a new positive mood about our future, Kozlowski said. The EU ambassador was in Pune as part of the outreach programme to take its relationship beyond trade and investment and inter-governmental talks and bring in more people to people  connections across academics, culture films and books.

He opined that even after Britain exits, EU will continue to be number one trading partner, the largest FDI contributor and a major investor in the manufacturing sector.

There are 6,000 European companies that have invested in India and €100 billion in FDI flows into India, the ambassador said. The European Investment Bank has committed €1.7 billion in India for this year for projects ranging from metro rail project in Bengaluru and Lucknow, Indian Solar Alliance, solar parks, funding to National Housing Bank to fund green house project developers and several water initiatives.