The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, has concluded a trade agreement with Australia. The European Commission announced this in a press release.
The agreement was reached after a meeting between the President of the Commission and the Prime Minister of Australia, Anthony Albanese, early Tuesday morning local time. The agreement will be presented at a press conference on Tuesday night Danish time.
However, Von der Leyen's signature on the agreement is not enough in itself. The EU countries and the EU Parliament must now ratify the agreement before it is fully in place from the European side. This has previously proven difficult.
Agriculturally-heavy EU countries such as France and Poland have previously fought against trade agreements. There may also be skepticism in the EU Parliament.
The EU Parliament has recently asked the Court of Justice of the EU to assess the trade agreement that the EU Commission had otherwise concluded with the South American Mercosur countries. When the agreement has been ratified in both the EU and Australia, it can finally enter into force.
Expecting great export growth
According to the press release, the trade agreement opens up access for the EU to one of the world's fastest growing economies.
It is expected that the agreement will cause exports from the EU to grow by up to 33 percent over the next ten years with an annual export value of up to 17.7 billion euros. This corresponds to over 132 billion Danish kroner. The agreement removes the vast majority of taxes when goods are exported to Australia.
The areas that are expected to experience the greatest growth include dairy products. Exports of these are expected to increase by up to 48 percent.
The agreement also underlines the EU's strategic interest in being able to import critical raw materials from Australia. These include aluminum and lithium.
In addition to the trade agreement, it is also announced that the two parties have entered into a "groundbreaking" security and defense partnership.
/ritzau/
Text, graphics, images, sound, and other content on this website are protected under copyright law. DK Medier reserves all rights to the content, including the right to exploit the content for the purpose of text and data mining, cf. Section 11b of the Copyright Act and Article 4 of the DSM Directive.
Customers with IP agreements/major customer agreements may only share Danish Offshore Industry articles internally for the purpose of handling specific cases. Sharing in connection with specific cases refers to journaling, archiving, or similar uses.
Customers with a personal subscription/login may not share Danish Offshore Industry articles with individuals who do not themselves have a personal subscription to Danish Offshore Industry.
Any deviation from the above requires written consent from DK Medier.
