PM meets with EU president in Rome to progress free trade deal

Leader-level talks have resumed between Australia and the EU as momentum builds on a free-trade agreement.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese has made securing a trade deal with the Europeans a priority of his second term of government, meeting with the president of the European Commission at the weekend little more than two weeks since his electoral victory.

Mr Albanese and EU president Ursula von der Leyen met on Sunday to resume leader-level discussions on the deal while in Rome for Pope Leo XIV’s inauguration.

Ahead of the meeting, the Prime Minister stressed the shared values between the two traders.

“We have common support for market-based systems, but also common views about human rights. We stand together with the people of Ukraine in the struggle against Russian aggression and we stand together on so many issues, including on the potential for us to further entrench our, or extend, our economic relationship through trade,” he said.

Ms von der Leyen revealed her optimism for a new deal, saying she looked forward to a new era between Europe and Australia.

“We can offer to each other stability and we’re very grateful for that,” she said, adding she also wanted to pursue more strategic partnerships in the areas of security and defence.

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese meets with European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen. Picture: Sophie Elsworth

Social Services Minister Tanya Plibersek said the negotiators would be ironing out a few “sticking points”, namely the rights to food products.

“There’s about 1,000 names that the European Union wants to restrict the use of and they are, parmesan, feta, prosecco, a whole lot of names of food that are related to the place where they come from. But, we would say that the parmesan made in Australia is the world’s best and we want to make sure that any free trade agreement with the European Union is a clear advantage for Australia. This is obviously one of the sticking points and we’ll continue to work through it,” she said.

Australian negotiators were also steadfast on more generous quotas for farmed products including for meat, sugar and cheese. Trade Minister Don Farrell walked away from negotiations in 2023 when it became apparent the Europeans were’ budging on these requests.

Nationals leader David Littleproud said the renewed enthusiasm to broker the free trade agreement with Europe – following US President Trump’s up-ending of global trading normals with his “reciprocal tariffs” – was “very encouraging”.

But he warned against rushing into a deal that could compromise Australian farming methods.

“While those geographical indicators are very encouraging around the use of prosecco and feta, we just need to be very careful about what they try to impose on the other side,” he said.

“To make sure Australian farmers aren’t impinged in terms of producing your food and fibre to the environmental standards that we need here in Australia, because we’re a different continent.”