Leaders from Australia and the European Union (EU) hope to conclude the agreement by mid-2023.

The FTA would strengthen our economic links with the EU, help diversify our trade in areas such as agriculture, energy, and innovative services, and support our climate transition.

An FTA with the EU must deliver commercially-significant new market access, create more opportunities for our services, improve access to the EU’s government procurement market and grow investment.

The EU is a high-income market of almost 450 million people with a GDP of around $23 trillion. As a bloc, it is already our third largest two-way trading partner of goods and services, worth $74 billion in 2020.

The EU is our fourth-largest source of foreign direct investment (valued at AUD121 billion in 2021) and the second-largest source of foreign investment in terms of total stocks (worth AUD763 billion in 2021).

Australian Government
Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Australian Trade and Investment Commission

Updated: November 2022