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After much anticipation, Australian farmers are set to gain a significant opportunity to expand their market presence in Europe, thanks to a new agreement. This deal allows them to export nearly tenfold the amount of red meat to European buyers. Moreover, Australian producers can continue to use familiar product names like prosecco, kransky, and parmesan, despite previous objections from European Union countries.
In exchange for these concessions, Australia will eliminate the luxury car tax, which has been a considerable burden for major European car manufacturers. Additionally, the 5 percent tariff on European Union goods will also be removed, marking a significant step in trade relations.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese hailed the agreement as mutually beneficial. “It is a win-win,” he declared. “This deal removes tariffs on crucial Australian exports, such as wine, seafood, and horticultural products. It ensures that our premium Australian produce, including beef, sheep meat, dairy, rice, and sugar, can reach consumers across the European market.”
Albanese further emphasized the advantages for Australians, noting that the agreement will provide consumers and businesses with a broader range of goods and services at more competitive prices. This includes vital inputs for both the manufacturing and primary industry sectors, enhancing economic opportunities on both sides.
“This benefits Australian consumers and companies too, with greater choice in goods and services at lower prices, including important inputs for our manufacturing and primary industry sectors.”
The deal will allow farmers to sell 30,600 tonnes of beef to the EU without incurring any tariffs.
While roughly 10 times Australia’s current quota of 3389 tonnes, the final figure has been met with fury from the local livestock industry, which had been pushing for at least 50,000 tonnes.
“Australia’s red meat sector has been profoundly let down by this outcome,” Australia-EU red meat market access taskforce chair Andrew McDonald said.
“To land a deal so far below what other suppliers have secured is genuinely bewildering.
“The agreement is a long way from anything resembling ‘free and fair trade’, particularly given Australia already provides the EU with quota‑and tariff‑free access for meat products like pork, while the A‑EU FTA locks in perpetual volume constraints on Australian red meat entering the EU.
“This outcome also sits uneasily beside the EU’s rhetoric of providing ‘a level playing field for all’ and its claims that Australia is a ‘like‑minded’ partner. In practice, this agreement delivers neither fairness nor reciprocity.”
Some food and drink producers will be happier with the deal than others, due to the names of so-called “geographic indicators” that are fiercely protected by Europe.
Winemakers will be able to continue labelling Italian-style sparkling as prosecco locally, making Australia the only country outside Italy to be granted permission by the EU to do so, but they will need to phase out the term for exports.
Dairy and meat producers will be allowed to keep using the names kransky and parmesan, but Albanese’s office said “grandfathering and lengthy phase-out periods have been secured for a limited number of terms such as feta, romano and gruyere”.
Negotiations on the free-trade deal first started in 2018, but broke down in 2023 when both parties hit an impasse over how much tariff-free beef Australia should be able to export.
However, talks resumed in the wake of US President Donald Trump’s so-called “liberation day” tariff announcement, which put the value of reliable free trade agreements into stark contrast with the volatility coming from the world’s largest economy.
“It’s a long way from Europe to Australia, but it’s absolutely worth it, because today we are writing a new chapter in our partnership,” von der Leyen said.
“Australia is a like-minded partner and is a trusted friend… good friends have to stand by each other to get closer, and that’s what we’re doing today.”
In addition to the free-trade agreement, Canberra and Brussels will ink a defence agreement, and Australia is also set to join the EU’s $158 billion Horizon Europe research program next year.
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