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Modi in Brussels: Meets Belgian PM, members of EU and parliaments

By FnF Correspondent | PUBLISHED: 30, Mar 2016, 17:34 pm IST | UPDATED: 30, Mar 2016, 17:36 pm IST

Modi in Brussels: Meets Belgian PM, members of EU and parliaments Brussels: The Prime Minister Narendra Modi meets the Prime Minister of Belgium Mr Charles Michel at the Egmont Palace in Brussels, Belgium on March 30, 2016.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi also met with select members of the European Union and Belgian parliaments in his first official engagement after his arrival here on Wednesday.

"A parliamentary beginning! PM meets select members of the European & Belgian Parliaments for 1st engagement of day," Ministry of External Affairs spokesperson Vikas Swarup tweeted.

Earlier, Modi arrived to a red carpet welcome and enthusiastic greetings from Indian nationals who crowded around him at Brussels airport.

"A red carpet at dawn. PM @narendramodi receives a warm welcome as he arrives in Brussels," Swarup tweeted.

Members of the Indian diaspora waved Indian flags in greeting and also mobbed Modi for autographs.

Brussels is the first leg of his three-nation tour of Belgium, the US and Saudi Arabia.

On his daylong visit to Brussels on Wednesday, Modi will hold a bilateral summit with Belgian Prime Minister Charles Michel and then attend the 13th India-European Union (EU) Summit. He will also address around 5,000 members of the Indian diaspora at an event later in the day.

Modi’s visit comes days after the March 22 terror attacks in Brussels which killed at least 32 people, including Raghavendran Ganeshan, who was an Infosys employee from Bengaluru.

From Brussels, Modi will leave for Washington to attend the Nuclear Security Summit on March 31 and April 1 and from there he will travel to Saudi Arabia on a two-day visit with a focus on boosting energy and security cooperation.

The 13th India-EU Summit is being held after a gap of four years. The last summit was held in New Delhi in 2012 and negotiations remained deadlocked over several key issues.

Besides firming up India-EU counter-terror partnership, delegates are also likely to discuss cleaning of Ganga on the lines of River Rhine and Danube.

EU is India's biggest trading partner among blocs with a trade of $126 billion. It is also India's largest export destination with exports worth $ 65 billion and the largest FDI in India at $ 69 billion.