France calls on EU members to delay trade negotiations with Australia amid AUKUS row

France on September 21 called on fellow European Union (EU) members to consider if the negotiations with Australia regarding a future trade agreement should be delayed. Ever since the US, UK and Australia announced the defence strategic pact called AUKUS, Paris has reiterated what it calls a 'lack of trust' with Canberra.

While France has already recalled its envoys from Australia and the United States, French European Affairs Minister Clement Beaune said that he would raise the trade pact and the security implications of AUKUS at a meeting with his counterparts in Brussels. As per The Associated Press, he said that France would ensure that the matter is discussed at EU summits as well ministerial meetings lined up for next month.

AUKUS, the Indo-Pacific security pact includes Australia scraping a multi-billion-dollar contract of buying diesel-electric French submarines. Instead, under the agreement, Canberra would acquire US nuclear-powered vessels. This has sparked tensions between France and Australia with Paris repeatedly suggesting ‘betrayal.’ Beaune called for ‘firmness’ not as French but as Europeans.

“It’s a matter of trust,” Beaune told reporters, as per AP. “When you have your word, it has some value between allies, between democracies, between partners and in this case this word was not respected... so of course it creates a breach of trust.”

“We have to be firm, not as French but as Europeans, because it’s a matter of the way we work together as allies,” he added.

EU-Australia Trade Talks 'unthinkable'

The trade negotiations between the European Union (EU) and Australia are on the verge of collapse over the lack of trust after Canberra decided to ditch a multibillion defence contract with France over AUKUS. Secretary of State for European Affairs of France, Clement Beaune told Politico that it is “unthinkable” to move on with the Australia-EU trade negotiations “as if nothing had happened.” He also laid emphasis on the need to keep “one’s word” as the condition of trust between democracies. 

Beaune’s remarks came after just last week, France recalled its ambassador from Australia and the United States. Australia chose to abandon a $66 billion submarine contract with France but acquired nuclear-powered submarines within a new trilateral defence and security pact with the UK and the US called AUKUS. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian has also described Australia’s withdrawal from the contract as a “stab in the back.”

IMAGE: AP