{"id":833486,"date":"2026-03-18T07:25:10","date_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:25:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833486\/"},"modified":"2026-03-18T07:25:10","modified_gmt":"2026-03-18T07:25:10","slug":"eu-australia-set-to-conclude-trade-talks-early-next-week-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/833486\/","title":{"rendered":"EU, Australia set to conclude trade talks early next week \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Brussels and Canberra relaunched trade negotiations after Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House last year. They had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/trade-talks-between-australia-and-eu-collapse\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">collapsed amid acrimony<\/a> at the end of 2023 amid disagreements over quotas on beef and lamb. The breakthrough comes as the EU looks to get closer to the Pacific-centered CPTPP trade bloc through its deepening bonds with Australia.<\/p>\n<p>In a letter to EU leaders shared Monday, von der Leyen said the EU and Australia were in \u201cthe final stretch towards concluding\u201d their trade agreement.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>\u201cIn addition to removing trade barriers, it will also facilitate access to critical raw materials \u2014 such as lithium, cobalt, rare earth elements, and hydrogen \u2014 and strengthen Europe\u2019s presence in one of the world\u2019s most dynamic economic regions,\u201d she wrote, as part of a list on the Commission\u2019s efforts to boost competitiveness.<\/p>\n<p>Negotiators had <a href=\"https:\/\/www.politico.eu\/article\/5-things-stopping-eu-trade-deal-with-australia\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">grappled in the home stretch<\/a> to close the gap on access for Australian beef and lamb to the European market; EU trade protections on specialty foods; critical minerals; and an Australian tax on luxury cars.<\/p>\n<p>Canberra and Brussels are also looking to seal a security and defense partnership, which is finalized.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>The EU top diplomat Kaja Kallas, who would be signing the defense deal, known as Security and Defense Partnership, is however not expected to be part of the trip. The pace would come on the heels of similar partnerships signed with the U.K., Canada and most recently India.<\/p>\n<p>Speaking last week at at the annual gathering of diplomats with the External Action Service, the EU\u2019s diplomatic body, Kallas said that <a href=\"https:\/\/pro.politico.eu\/news\/214462\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">the deal was coming<\/a> as she announced that \u201clater this week, I will sign the tenth [SDP] with Australia and subsequent ones with Iceland and Ghana in the coming days.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>James Panichi, Zoya Sheftalovich, Sebastian Starcevic and Nette N\u00f6stlinger contributed reporting.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Brussels and Canberra relaunched trade negotiations after Donald Trump\u2019s return to the White House last year. They had&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":833487,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5174],"tags":[26257,186,6850,943,346,6641,26259,10685,473,32,2000,299,5187,19912,7059,730,2596,2441,1216,839,809,8106,2822,811,1200,1201,6862,15,1220],"class_list":["post-833486","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-eu","tag-anthony-albanese","tag-australia","tag-beef","tag-canada","tag-cars","tag-competitiveness","tag-cptpp","tag-critical-raw-materials","tag-defense","tag-donald-trump","tag-eu","tag-europe","tag-european","tag-ghana","tag-iceland","tag-india","tag-kaja-kallas","tag-markets","tag-maros-sefcovic","tag-middle-east","tag-negotiations","tag-raw-materials","tag-regions-cohesion","tag-security","tag-tax","tag-trade","tag-trade-agreements","tag-united-kingdom","tag-ursula-von-der-leyen"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116248990632264341","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833486","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=833486"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/833486\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/833487"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=833486"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=833486"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=833486"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}