Prosecco and cross-border data flow

SydneyOn his first trip after the elections, Don Farrell, Australian Minister of Trade for the re-elected Albanese government, met in Paris with the European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovič. The visit, preceded by two online meetings, served as an opportunity for the pair to take the pulse of a free trade agreement between Australia and the European Union, which has been under negotiation since 2018. However, they did not commit to a formal start date.

"This is an unparalleled opportunity to ensure the broadest access to the world's single market while deepening our relationship with a key economic partner," Farrell remarked after the meeting within the framework of the OECD summit, during which the Australian government reinforced its commitment to "agri-food products in the EU market."

"[In 2023] the deal was done," recalls Bruce Wilson, director of the European Union Centre of Excellence at RMIT. It was the minister himself who capitulated at the last minute." The EU proposal – which, for example, set a lower meat import quota than New Zealand's, of 3,333 tonnes per year, and would have represented 0.3% of total agricultural and food imports – was insufficient for the Australians.

But now Australia and the EU are exploring an agreement in a climate marked by US tariffs, as well as the interest in "structured cooperation," in the words of Commissioner Šefčovič, with the eighteen Pacific and Indian Ocean nations that make up the Trans-Pacific Partnership, an Austrian of the Austrian, an Austrian of the Trans-Pacific.

Both parties recognize this: "Now is the time to strengthen our economic partnership and we are working on the outstanding issues to close the agreement," said Farrell from Paris, referring to Brussels to review the quotas when it seems that Australian negotiators see as unresolved.

Recently, the Labor government has expanded its parliamentary majority and won seats considered rural from the opposition. For Professor Wilson, "the fact that the conservative parties are in the middle of a fight makes it easier to reject the demands of the agricultural lobby," but he acknowledges that "for Europeans the blockage will be the tax on luxury cars, and for Australians it will be agriculture."

Likewise, the main employers' associations in sectors such as tourism, transport, tertiary education, and mining published a statement earlier this month in favor of eliminating trade barriers. "The European Union is the big loophole," remarks Jane Drake-Brockman, executive director of the Australian Services Roundtable, co-signers of the manifesto. For me, access to the services sector is more important than access to the common market."

Drake-Brockman, who negotiated with the EU in the 1990s to stop Australian winemakers from labeling sparkling wine as champagne during her time at the Ministry of Trade, emphasizes that "the services sector is frustrated at being held hostage by a sector that is always considered economic."

According to the European Union, Australia was the 20th largest trading partner in the community club, with economic surpluses of more than almost 27 billion euros in sectors such as minerals, transport equipment and machinery, and the chemical sector. For Australia, the EU is the third largest trading partner, after China and Japan, with a global value of 49.4 billion last year alone.

The services sector

"The significant gains will be for companies in the service sector," Wilson emphasizes, who also asserts that the free trade agreement could change policies regarding the mobility of people, online commerce, or data exchange in a sector, that of digital services, in which Europe is a world leader.

"The services sector is really important in Australia because it has small and medium-sized businesses," Drake-Brockman emphasizes. "Startups and the technology sector are also important. It's the sector leading the digital transformation, the green transformation, energy, and mining services."

However, the pressure on Minister Farrell continues unabated. Local winemakers will use their name, even if it's a grape variety. Access to lamb, or eggs, cheese, whatever... but that's not how I see it. For me, the red lines are Prosecco and the cross-border flow of data."