Australia ’up for a deal’ with the EU after years of trade talks

Prime Minister Anthony Albanese said Australia is “up for a deal” with the European Union, sounding a note of cautious optimism after years of trade negotiations.

“We support free and fair trade,” he said on a visit to Rome, where he is meeting with world leaders including European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen. “We’re up for a deal, but not any deal at any price.”

The two sides have for years negotiated a trade pact worth billions. Last year, they struck an agreement to boost cooperation and investment in critical minerals, part of a drive by the West to loosen China’s grip on supply chains of materials essential to high-tech and green manufacturing.

Mr Albanese also addressed farm exports - one of the negotiations’ sticking points - and said that Europe hasn’t been willing to meet Australia’s demands for access to its market, the Sydney Morning Herald reported. But he didn’t mention easing a luxury car tax on European autos, which face a 5 per cent tariff in Australia, according to the newspaper.

The EU’s ambassador to Australia hinted this month that the bloc was open to compromise on the continued use of names like feta and prosecco by Australian culinary producers - something that the EU previously opposed - the Herald reported earlier.

Mr Albanese, who was re-elected this month, maintained that the names of such products are tied to the country’s rich European migrant heritage and shouldn’t be changed under a trade deal.

“The naming rights of those products are related to migrants from Europe who’ve come to Australia and produce products that they continue to call feta or prosecco because they’re based upon the heritage,” Mr Albanese said, according to comments cited by the Herald.

Bloomberg.