Philipp Ackermann at Idea Exchange: ‘Pahalgam is a game changer in many ways. It is an attack on the heart of India'

Indian Express

11-05-2025

German Ambassador Philipp Ackermann on 25 years of the Indo-German partnership, investment, immigration, skilled Indian manpower and the impact of Pahalgam in the neighbourhood. The session was moderated by Diplomatic Editor Shubhajit Roy.
Shubhajit Roy: Give us a sense of how the Indo-German relationship has progressed over the last 25 years.
One of the most interesting formats in this partnership are the intergovernmental consultations that happen every second year. These set a road map which is about stock-taking and also forward-looking.
During my tenure, we have made a huge effort to deepen and intensify partnerships. Two things have changed over the last four years. First is migration. Germany is very interested in getting skilled labour from India in a fair and legal way. We work with the government through a mobility agreement to recruit people who are willing to go to Germany, have the appropriate qualifications and would like to work in Germany, at least for a couple of years. Then we have 50,000 Indian students, the biggest non-German group among foreign students. And the number is growing by 10 per cent every year. You get a good education for lesser money than you would anywhere in the Anglo-Saxon world.
Second is the military strategic cooperation. We have done joint exercises with Indian Air Force (IAF) in Coimbatore last year. We have seen frigates and a provision ship coming into Indian ports. There is a very regular exchange of high-level defence generals. That also comes along with a renewed commitment to arms and product exchanges that was not always easy because the German government had a very restrictive policy towards arms exports to non-NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) members. That has changed. We now have a regular flow of German products and joint ventures with Indian companies in the armament sector. A submarine deal might be seeing the light of the day in the coming months.
Next we will work together very closely on space. This partnership is dynamic.
Shubhajit Roy: Migration has been a subject of debate in Europe and the US. Does the rise of the anti-migrant AfD (Alternative for Germany) as a political force jeopardise this dynamic?
It's a very pertinent question as 20 per cent of German voters voted for a far-Right party. Migration has been a contentious topic in Germany for the last six years. It started with the Syrian refugee crisis in 2015 where we accepted a million Syrian refugees. It then continued with the Ukraine crisis where over one million Ukrainian refugees came to Germany. There is a constant flow of asylum seekers into Europe, not only Germany, from African, Asian and Middle Eastern countries. People felt overwhelmed by this influx of migration and thought their social welfare systems were undermined. There is a perception that migration leads to more crime in Germany.
On INDIANS IN GERMANY | Germany is interested in getting skilled labour from India in a fair and legal way. We work
with the government through a mobility agreement to recruit people. Then we have 50,000 Indian students
But I think what the government has to do and has succeeded to a certain extent in doing is to distinguish between migration that is really attractive for the labour market in Germany and asylum seekers as well as economic refugees who want a better life and get in illegally. If we want to keep our level of prosperity, we need skilled labour to fill vacancies. At the same time, the government has to reduce illegal immigration and work with the social welfare system so that people feel more secure and less overwhelmed psychologically. Thirty per cent of Germans now have at least one non-German parent. So Germany has turned into an immigration country par excellence. The new migrants are often from non-European cultural backgrounds. That's something the population has to cope with. I think our democratic institutions can work with it.
Shubhajit Roy: India has been partnering with Germany on skill development. Indian professionals are exploring prospects beyond Berlin, Frankfurt and Munich. When a Brown Indian goes to an all-White village or a town, is there a problem?
You cannot generalise the Indian diaspora in Germany, it's very differentiated. But what is remarkable about the three lakh Indians in Germany is that their average salary is higher than the Germans. That means they have ambition and a readiness to adapt, go the extra mile.
The English-speaking IT engineer in Munich, Frankfurt and Berlin works in a start-up and can easily float through restaurants and bars. Indian skilled labour is also in high demand at what we call the German Mittelstand or medium-sized enterprises — we call them the hidden champions — that produce niche products. They are located outside cities. Here the Indian employee has to learn German as everybody may not understand English, particularly in the eastern part of Germany.
But it seems as if Indians like Germany much better than Germans like Germany by now. When students go to Dresden or the eastern parts, we fear about them getting exposed to racism. But our empirical experience is that they have a great time. A girl student told me she had the best time of her life in Jena.
Second, Indian students make great apprentices. So, a baker in Germany has a diploma, as do a plumber and a roofer. We offer vocational training but don't find enough apprentices of German origin. So smaller establishments in the Black Forest, a picturesque part of rural Germany, hire apprentices from India. Young people from Haryana and Uttarakhand go to the Black Forest and live in little villages, learning the art of baking or plumbing. It is surprising how well the blending works. The owner or the employers take their Indian recruits to football matches over the weekend, to village parties, and the latter find another family there. Indian apprentices must be a couple of thousands by now and show that once you get into a closely knit social structure, it's much easier to find acceptance.
Shubhajit Roy: How do you see India's response to the Pahalgam terrorist attack? Is it different from the 26/11 terror attacks in Mumbai?
The Pahalgam attack was horrifying for its selective killings. It should be called a terrorist attack and has had an impact on the consciousness. You cannot help but feel strongly when you see the families and spouses of those who have been killed. It's heartbreaking to see the young and newly-married lose their husbands. Pahalgam is a game changer in many ways and there's an enormous amount of solidarity that has gone out to India. I was in Kashmir last year and compared to what it was 15 years ago, I saw tourists everywhere. So basically, Pahalgam is an attack on the heart of India.
I am a diplomat. So I feel that the language of diplomacy is the best language to speak. Both governments know that de-escalation is the question of the hour.
Shubhajit Roy: Conservative leader Friedrich Merz was elected Chancellor in an unprecedented manner in a second round of voting. What does he think of India and this region?
He has been very active in foreign policy before. So, what are the big tasks? His big tasks are dealing with the extremist party inside the country, migration, a stagnating economy and trans-Atlantic relations. The Americans, in our historical thinking, have saved us as leaders of the NATO alliance that's not only economic but also value-based. That has changed in the last three months because the new American government has decided to give this alliance up to a certain extent. This means we have to redefine trans-Atlanticism, set up a relationship with Washington but also become more independent from it.
What do you do with the global economy? That's where we see India as our strategic partner. India's private sector is hugely successful internationally. We feel that India will be a big part of these free trade, global economy, supply chain economies. Maybe more than the US from what we are seeing now.
Therefore, I think our investment in India will be huge. There might be big investments in India by German companies in the pipeline, for the coming years. You will see more business coming to India.
On CHANGED DYNAMIC WITH US | There is a difference of value system between the current US and German governments. We feel our definition of freedom is different from what the American government puts on the table right now
Very soon, we are looking at a phone call between Prime Minister Narendra Modi and the new Chancellor. We hope that your foreign minister S Jaishankar will come to Germany next month, and we hope that our minister, once he has settled a bit, will plan a trip to India in the second half of this year. India is mentioned in the coalition treaty a couple of times and there is a clear commitment to make this partnership even more intense or dynamic than it has ever been. So prepare for German attention.
Anil Sasi: What do you make of the problems at companies like Volkswagen, which have fallen behind in the electrical vehicle (EV) race?
There have been layoffs at Thyssenkrupp and Porsche. To what extent is this reflective of the larger problems that German industry is facing?
The big ships of German economy are in particularly difficult times right now, be it the car manufacturers or the chemical industry. Volkswagen has much better first quarter numbers this year than one would have expected. Their new car, after their new EV policy, is apparently quite good.
I'm no expert but all these industries have a competitor who is very difficult to beat, and that's China. It has learnt so much over the last couple of decades and its cars are way cheaper and pretty good. The German industry has to figure out how to get ahead of the curve. We have to be much more innovative, creative and inventive.
Anil Sasi: What do you have to say about US Vice-President J D Vance's and Elon Musk's support to AfD?
I think we have to live with it. We are used to criticism from outside. You remember the financial crisis, where Germany was very strict with austerity measures, and we became the bad man? There is a difference of value system between the current American government and the German government as it stands right now. We feel that our definition of freedom is different from what the American government puts on the table right now. But you should not forget that trans-Atlanticism will be one of our lifelines, foreign policy-wise, and there will also be a time after Donald Trump.
Shubhajit Roy: Do you see this as a foreign interference in your democratic processes?
You have to sit at the table to sort out disagreements. We've seen how the meeting between the US President and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy went at the White House. But then a couple of weeks later they found a common understanding. So I'm very confident that our relations will be okay with the current US government. We have to invest in this relation because America is important for us. But we have also to see that the old interdependence, where we worked closely together and where the Americans were the leaders of Western alliance, has, to a certain extent, come to an end. I would also critically say that our countries, mine included, had become a little comfortable with Americans looking after international security and us paying for humanitarian aid and development cooperation. This will have to change now. We are now talking about war in Europe because our neighbour Russia is on an expansive course and is looking to swallow the Baltic states. So we have to restructure our armed forces as well as European defence policy.
Aakash Joshi: News about global conflicts, be it Israel-Palestine or the Ukraine conflict, are now on social media. Does that make the job of diplomacy and conversation harder?
It is certainly more difficult for diplomats. Everybody gets agitated very quickly through this instant media consumption. So people are much more upset, much more opinionated and much more involved. We have a huge fake news problem in Europe. There are channels and trolls; the Russians are very active in this field. We have seen elections being manipulated by this. Getting the facts right or straight is much more difficult than it used to be, even in countries like mine, where you have a very strong public broadcast system.
On China | We feel that China is overstepping lines internationally. We feel we have to engage in a dialogue to make China understand that what it does in the south and East Asia is, in many ways, not acceptable
Kaushik Das Gupta: One of the biggest losers in the German election was the Greens party. Will this weaken some of Germany's green commitments in light of the energy crisis at hand?
The new Minister of Economics and Energy has now changed, she is from the conservative party. During the handover of ministries, the new minister went to the dais and said, 'I'd like to thank you, my dear predecessor, because what you did after the energy crisis is just enormously successful.' What did he do? He changed our energy mix dramatically. So now 60 per cent of all electricity in Germany is from renewables.
And that has happened in a couple of years because of the Russians (they stopped gas supply in 2022). The fact that she acknowledges his achievement shows that in general there is no fundamental change in the climate and energy policy of Germany. As for why did the Greens do so badly, I think they have not found the right way of communication. But they still got 11 per cent.
Monojit Majumdar: The AfD has got 20 per cent of the vote. History has shown us that whenever we have kept groups following extreme ideologies out of the national discourse, we have found it difficult to engage them or find a middle ground. Is there a way out?
There's an ongoing debate in Germany on whether we have to include them (AfD) or put up a firewall to not work with them. They have a nationwide 20 per cent; in Eastern states they have 30 per cent, which is a third of all voters.
My personal take on this is to look at what they say and what they do. We will not be able to tolerate parties that reflect Nazi ideology. Now when they say that people with dark skin cannot be citizens of Germany, then we have to be very cautious and restrictive before reaching out to them. What will happen in the future? It's difficult to imagine that they will disappear. But parties can change and may be have to differentiate between their own members too.
Devyani Onial: Germany has its first digital ministry now. Why did you feel the need for that and how do you see it vis-a-vis the digitalisation in India?
The new ministry is very timely because compared to India, we are in the stone age in many ways. We are a completely cash-driven society. Let me give you two reasons why it is so difficult to push digitisation in Germany. One is data protection. This would never fly in Germany because people would be afraid that everything is transparent and that the government can see everything you do. The second reason is we are a federal state like India. State governments have a very strong executive power and aligning them with the central government is difficult.
Shubhajit Roy: China has had a unique, robust relationship with Germany. Many would argue that China's rise has been aided by the Germans. How does Germany see this challenge?
China has learnt a lot from the German industry, which has been investing in China for the last 30 years very successfully. Now China is a competitor. We see the aggressiveness in its immediate neighbourhood with concern. We feel that China is overstepping lines internationally. We feel that we have to engage in a dialogue to make China understand that what it does in the south and East Asian neighbourhood is, for us, in many ways, not acceptable. So China will stay an economic partner, there is no doubt. The new government will have to deal with China under these different hats.