EU envoy talks up security ties and trade talks

The European Union’s top diplomat in Canberra says Donald Trump’s tariff regime has galvanised negotiations on an EU-Australia free trade deal, although the same ‘sticky issues’ remain.

European Union ambassador to Australia Gabriele Visentin. Picture: Martin Ollman/NewsWire

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The European Union’s top diplomat in Canberra says Donald Trump’s tariff regime has galvanised negotiations on an EU-Australia free trade deal, although the same “sticky issues” remain – as he also revealed Labor had begun “informal talks” on a security partnership.

EU ambassador to Australia Gab­riele Visentin said talks on a strategic security partnership were in the “very early stages” but Defence Minister Richard Marles had met with a senior European diplomat at the recent Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore to begin discussions.

Anthony Albanese had initially been cautious about the proposal to sign a security pact with Europe, after European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen suggested the idea at a meeting in Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration last month.

Mr Visentin said Australia had not yet agreed to a position on a strategic security partnership with the EU, but that he had a “glass half full” attitude about the likelihood of an agreement being struck.

“The Prime Minister rightly said that it was a very early stage to comment,” he told the National Press Club on Wednesday.

“I suppose there has not been a discussion in cabinet, that’s why there was not an agreed position from the Australian side.

“But I think that the European proposal was welcome … when Minister Marles met representative (Kaja) Kallas in Singapore, there was a follow-up to that, and it was agreed that informal talks would start with Australia in Brussels, with representatives from European institutions.”

As negotiations on an EU free trade agreement resume, Mr Visentin said that while the issues that sank past attempts to sign a deal were still at play, the geopolitical environment had changed.

“The differences are still there, and are still difficult to resolve and to address,” he said. “What has not been resolved in Osaka is still unsolved. What has changed, of course, is the willingness and the readiness to try to strike a deal. We have seen incredible change in the geopolitics and in the world of trade, and this means that an FTA would allow the EU and Australia to team up and defend … the principles of free trade.

“So on one side, the geopolitical situation has been, let’s say, instrumental to bring us back to the talks after 1½ years that these talks have been suspended, but the sticky issues remain.”

After negotiations on a free trade deal collapsed in late 2023 over sticking points such as market access for Australian agricultural products, Mr Visentin said an agreement would have a broader scope than the EU simply granting greater access to its agriculture market.

“You have to see a global package when you do an FTA,” he said.

“It’s not just agriculture. It’s comprehensive.”

But Mr Visentin was reluctant to predict a deal would be struck by the end of this term of government. “What is happening now is that we have started talking again, and there have been meetings at the political level and also the negotiators level,” he said. “So we will see. I cannot predict.”

When asked if Australia’s decision to break its promise to buy French submarines to enter into the AUKUS pact had soured relations, Mr Visentin said it occurred “years ago” and was in the past.

He criticised the US’s protectionist agenda and suite of tariffs, pushing the case for free trade to underpin global prosperity.

“In our difficult times, nothing can be any more taken for granted,” he said. “For decades, free trade has been a driver of global prosperity and has lifted billions out of poverty. Now global markets are shaken by tariffs.

“Tariffs are like taxes. They hurt consumers and businesses alike, they affect Wall Street as well as Main Street. So the right answer … is more free trade.

“Therefore, we have to team up and double down on our hallmark policies of open markets based on free and fair trade.”