France to torpedo Canberra-EU trade deal over AUKUS row, says 'negotiations unthinkable'

Irate French President Emmanuel Macron will obliterate the EU trade deal with Australia as Paris is contentious of the trilateral Aukus security pact between US, Australia and UK that France called “a stab in the back”. Australia unilaterally abandoned the multi-billion dollars diesel-electric submarines contract with France that was struck in 2016, and in a fit of resentment now, the French leader has indicated that Canberra can ascertain that pursuing any future negotiations with Paris is now "unthinkable" as he has recalled his ambassadors from Washington, US and Canberra.

French President Macron also met with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last weekend in Athens to discuss the Aukus pact. The EU, however, declined to be transparent about the repercussions of the trilateral deal on its ties with the post-Brexit UK and Australia. French Foreign Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian, however, declared in the press that the alliance wasn’t “just a Franco-Australian affair, but a rupture of trust in alliances” across Europe.

EU 'will collapse' 3-year free trade agreement with Australia

France's European affairs secretary, Clément Beaune, on Monday told Politico that the EU will collapse the three-year agreement for free trade with Canberra, scrapping nearly 11 rounds of dialogues over Prime Minister Scott Morrison’s breach of trust in a retaliatory move. Australia had hoped to conclude the accord before the end of the year, the newspaper reported. Macron has vowed to sink the Brussels and Canberra talks and run aground the agreement to be reached by Eurocrats this year. In response to France’s fury over the AUKUS alliance, Brussels appeared to rethink multilateral relations with Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States, casting doubts on the next round of its trade negotiations with Australia.   

"We are analysing the impact that the AUKUS announcement would have on the schedule of the trade talks between the EU and Australia", said Eric Mamer, the European Commission's chief spokesperson told a press briefing. Mamer acknowledged France’s angst for Canberra’s ditching of the 56-billion-euro [$65.6 billion] defence deal for the purchase of 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines. 

"This agreement between the UK, Australia, and the US relates in particular to military cooperation, which didn't involve the European Union directly, but it did involve a member state. We don't necessarily have all the information at hand, and that's why the president is consulting closely," Mamer stressed. 

Meanwhile, Secretary of State for European Affairs of France, Clément Beaune told Politico that Europe could hardly think of continuing trade talks with Australia after a member state was humiliated. "Keeping one's word is the condition of trust between democracies and between allies," he said. "So it is unthinkable to move forward on trade negotiations as if nothing had happened with a country in which we no longer trust,” the EU secretary of state for France said in his official statement to the newspaper. The diplomat indicated that it would be impossible for the EU to strike deals with Canberra in face of the French protest. 

The paper has also confirmed with sources that Paris appears to be highly defensive about the trade agreements with major agricultural exporters and with Australia snubbing a major defence deal, France has pursued the European Commission to not grant the Australian farmers preferential market access for their beef and dairy products.

German MEP Bernd Lange, chair of the European Parliament's international trade committee, confirmed in his statement that the EU-Canberra trade deal was “in trouble,” adding that the “willingness to compromise, on the European side, has now certainly decreased,” according to his remarks made to Politico. He emphasized that Canberra's controversial move of striking a deal with the US “sends industrial policy signals against the EU,” and is likely to affect the new pact with German company Atlas Elektronik. 

Australian minister ‘confident’ Aukus won't derail EU talks

On Monday, 20 September, Australian Trade Minister Dan Tehan said that he was “confident” that the Aukus pact row with France would not spill over and impact trade with the EU. He quickly added that he will seek to hold a meeting with French President Macron when he arrives in Paris for an Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development meeting in October. “I will be very keen to touch base with my French counterpart while I’m in France,” Tehan told Australian Broadcasting Corporation radio in his broadcast statement. Australian and EU officials were expected to hold negotiations on a trade deal on 12 October.