- Home
- About us
- Visas and migration
- Travelling to Australia
- Services for Australians
- Doing business with Australia
- Education
- Media
- About Australia
- Relations with the EU
- Relations with Belgium and Luxembourg
- Relations with NATO
- Events
- Culture
- Customs and quarantine
- Science, research, innovation
- Nederlands
- Français
Australia's Relations with the European Union
Australia and the European Union enjoy a constructive and substantial bilateral relationship built on a shared commitment to freedom and democratic values and a like-minded approach to a broad range of international issues. Key among these commitments are support for global efforts against terrorism and the proliferation of nuclear and conventional weapons, and the promotion of peace, sustainable development, good governance and human rights.
Australia and the European Union cooperate increasingly closely in the Asia-Pacific region, including to enhance security, stability and good governance, and to improve the coordination of development cooperation assistance among donors to the region. The European Union is a significant provider of aid to the Pacific and South East Asia. Australia has a number of formal bilateral agreements with the European Union and its institutions.
Both parties have recently developed a new Partnership Framework to shape the future direction of bilateral cooperation. The new framework was launched during the Australia-EU Presidency Consultations in Paris on 29 October 2008 and focus on practical cooperation in the following areas:
• shared foreign policy and global security interests;
• the multilateral rules-based trading system and the bilateral trade and investment relationship;
• the Asia-Pacific region;
• energy issues, climate change and fisheries and forestry;
• science, research, technology and innovation, education and culture and facilitating the movement of people.
The new framework is intended to update and replace the June 1997 Australia-
European Union Joint Declaration on Relations and the subsequent March 2003-08 Agenda for Cooperation.
Bilateral economic and trade relationship
In 2007-08, the European Union was Australia’s largest two-way merchandise trading partner, our third-largest market for merchandise exports (behind Japan and China) and our largest source of merchandise imports. Australia’s total two-way merchandise trade with the European Union in 2007-08 was valued at $63.7 billion, with total Australian merchandise exports to the European Union worth $20.5 billion, a seven per cent increase from 2006-07. Australia’s merchandise imports from the European Union in 2007-08 totalled $43.2 billion, up eleven per cent from 2006-07.
The European Union is also Australia’s biggest foreign investor. At the end of 2007, EU direct foreign investment in Australia totalled $136 billion – about $44 billion more than from the United States, our second-largest foreign investor.
The European Union is the second-largest destination for Australia’s direct investment abroad (behind the United States), accounting for $56.3 billion of Australian direct investment as at 31 December 2007.
Trade Success
In 2007, Australia exported $1.4 billion worth of wine to the EU. The 1994 Australia-European Community (EC) Trade in Wine Agreement has been a valuable tool in facilitating Australia access to the EU wine market. A new Australia-EC Wine Agreement, initialled on 5 June 2007, was signed by the Australian Foreign Minister, Stephen Smith, and the European Commissioner for Agriculture and Rural Development, Mariann Fischer-Boel, in Brussels on 1 December 2008 and is expected to come into effect in 2009. The Agreement allows for greater market access to the European Union for Australian wines, in exchange for phasing out EU geographic terms used to describe Australian wine products, providing benefits for both Australian and European wine producers.
To find out more about Australia-EU relations, click here.