EU and Australia Seal Trade Deal After Eight Years of Talks

Overview

• The EU and Australia signed a free‑trade pact Tuesday in Canberra that scraps most tariffs and gives the EU priority access to Australian aluminium, lithium, and manganese.
• Brussels says the deal could lift EU GDP by about €4 billion by 2030 and raise exports, helped by a higher Australian luxury‑car tax threshold that will exempt most EU electric vehicles.
• The accord expands farm market access, including a 30,600‑tonne beef quota phased in over a decade, 25,000 tonnes of sheep and goat meat over seven years, and reduced duties for sugar, ethanol, rice, butter, and skim milk powder.
• On protected food names, Australia may keep using terms like feta and gruyère where producers have at least five years of prior use, and prosecco stays allowed domestically but must be dropped on exports after ten years.
• Major EU farm unions call the pact asymmetric and vow to fight ratification, citing hormones, antibiotics, animal‑welfare gaps, and the carbon cost of long frozen shipments, while some economists argue distance and freight costs will curb the farm impact.