Wednesday 28th February 2024
EU FTA negotiations – What happened?
Shadow Minister for Trade and Tourism, the Hon Kevin Hogan MP has called on the Labor government to resume AU-EU Free Trade Agreement negotiations with the European Commission immediately.
“In the days leading up to the Osaka meeting, there was strong expectations from both parties a deal would be done. While we all agree it is better to walk away than do a bad deal, it is difficult to comprehend that after five years of negotiations, the deal was killed on the day before the final round of negotiations.” Mr Hogan said.
“The Europeans are saying they were ready to negotiate and there were better offers to be made on the agricultural quotas. So why would the Minister kill the deal without even listening to what these offers were?”
“When asked in Senate Estimates whether labour market testing was one of the things that would have had to go if we got agricultural rights – Minister Farrell admitted “Labour market testing would have been one of the issues.””
“We know the Australian union movements position on labour market testing in free trade agreements and we know the current labor government is controlled by their union paymasters.”
“The European Commission were looking for an agreement with no labour market testing similar to our UK FTA that includes a labour market testing exemption.”
“There are questions to be asked of Prime Minister Albanese as to why he has still not picked up the phone to call the EU Commission president – as Prime Minister Morrison did with his counterpart with the UK FTA – to see what can be done to revive a deal worth $40 billion a year in bilateral trade. “
“And there are serious questions to be asked of the Minister as to why he did not even sit down with his counterparts to hear them out, and what role the unions played in his decision to kill the deal?”
“And if this is not the case, the message I have been asked to give the Minister and the Prime Minister is: The European Commission is ready to sit down at the table, even tomorrow morning should the Australian side be ready to do it. They are ready to engage in negotiations, not talks, but negotiations and they would like this to happen as soon as possible.”
Ends
