Europeans need to sort out a few beefs over free trade

After five years of talking, a proposed free trade agreement between Australia and the EU collapsed in October 2023 for the best of reasons. It would have been a “dud deal” according to Australian farmers, who congratulated the Albanese government for walking away. At the time the National Farmers Federation’s outgoing president, Fiona Simson, said the proposed deal looked like the “EU is getting more of what they wanted, and we’re getting less”.

As Murray Watt, then agriculture minister, told The Australian, the stumbling block was the EU’s restrictive conditions and quotas on Australian agricultural products, especially sugar, beef and lamb, as well as the EU’s determination to limit use of geographical food and drink terms such as feta and prosecco. Senator Watt said the EU was “a very protectionist market when it comes to agriculture, and they weren’t prepared to budge enough for it to be in our interests”.

Fast forward 18 months and the EU is singing from a more upbeat song sheet, insisting an FTA with Australia should be a “no-brainer”. As President Donald Trump’s US tariffs wreak havoc across the world economy, EU ambassador to Australia Gabriele Visentin wants the urgent resumption of the stalled free trade talks with Canberra. The 27-nation, 450 million customer market, he told Ben Packham, was a reliable and predictable partner that respected the rule of law and knew how to keep a deal. Current geopolitical upheavals sweeping the globe were “inviting us to get even closer”, Mr Visentin said, opening the way for a historic new partnership founded on shared values and Australia’s wartime sacrifices in Europe during World War I and World War II. Closer trade ties, new arms deals, defence exercises, critical minerals ventures and scientific co-operation should all be on the table.

All of which is a good starting point for the resumption of FTA negotiations. Diversification is vital to Australia’s future as a trading nation, which experience during China’s imposition of unfair trade barriers from 2020 to 2024 showed. Another free trade deal would be welcome. After Mr Trump thumbed his nose at longstanding US free trade deals, including that signed with Australia in 2005, it is important that such agreements prove more valuable than the paper they are printed on. And we agree with Mr Visentin’s view: “The right answer against the disruption of the world economy and the world market is precisely more free trade.”

Farmers, especially beef producers, would be looking for any new EU trade proposal to improve their market access to Europe. Following Mr Trump’s imposition of 25 per cent tariffs on steel and aluminium imports, tariffs are expected to be extended to other imports as early as April 2. Trade Minister Don Farrell told The Australian’s Global Food Forum last week he was “deeply concerned” about Australia’s beef exports to the US, which dwarf our steel and aluminium exports. The UN Comtrade database shows meat accounted for more than $4bn of Australia’s $14bn exports to the US in 2024.

But access for Australian agriculture, especially beef, to European markets would be a hurdle if FTA talks resumed. In 2023, central Queensland grazier Josie Angus, whose family business was exporting beef to Europe, said the proposed level of access for Australian beef to the EU was “laughable” compared with the level of red meat access Europe had into Australia. Mr Visentin acknowledges that Europe’s “noisy” farmers played a role in the collapse of the long-anticipated FTA in 2023. But the willingness of EU leaders to offer Australian agriculture freer access to markets would test the depth of their commitment to meaningful free trade negotiations.