The news came at night. The president of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to announce the white smoke alongside the Australian Prime Minister, Anthony Albanese. After a decade of negotiations, the European Union and Australia sealed their new free trade agreement.
So far in 2026 alone, Brussels has managed to close up to three major trade agreements. First, with the countries that are part of the Mercosur. A few weeks later, with a power like India. Now the turn has come Australiaa country of which Von der Leyen highlighted their shared values: “Ours.”
But this new EU-Australia trade agreement introduces some singularities. Brussels has special interest in the oceanic country for its minerals. The country is a mining power and proof of this is that the US has already closed a pact with Canberra to reduce the West’s dependence on China and its rare earths, crucial for developing and manufacturing technology.
In addition, Brussels and Canberra have sealed an alliance to strengthen their defense sectors, in line with the political strategy that the EU has maintained for months.
In return, the European Union has weighed its market of 450 million people. Australian beef is world famous. Its livestock sector is one of the world leaders in production. Entering a mammoth market like the community with fewer brakes and obstacles is good business.
The problem is that the Galician Labor Union had already warned of what this agreement with Australia could mean for local livestock farming. The EU has managed to cut the quota of Galician veal that will enter the Old Continent free of taxes, precisely aware of the sensitivity of the countryside, especially after the pact with Mercosur. The EU itself does little.
30,000 tons per year without tariffs: the fine print
Brussels estimates speak of a savings of up to 1,000 million euros in tariffs for European producers and farmers. They also foresee a 33% increase in exports to Australia in the next ten years. Products such as sugar, chocolate, wine or processed foods will see trade barriers removed on day one. Cheese, three years after entry into force.
But where some conflict arises is in the quotas. Australia demanded unencumbered access to up to 50,000 tons for its beef. Brussels was willing to give up to 20,000 tons. The negotiations, which began in 2018 and have now ended, set the quota of Australian beef that will arrive in the EU at 30,600 tons annually.
Of that annual quota of 30,600 tons, 55% will not pay tariffs if it is grass-fed meat, from extensive livestock farming. The remaining 45% will have to assume a tax of 7.5%. However, the European Commissioner for Trade, Maroš Šefčovičhas clarified that this new trade agreement with Australia includes safeguard clauses, such as those achieved with the Mercosur pact.
These clauses will allow the terms of the pact to be renegotiated on certain products if it is detected that local competition is being seriously distorted at one of the two extremes (the EU or Australia). Šefčovič himself has acknowledged that this has been included “to reassure the agricultural sector”especially after the protests over the seal of the pact with Mercosur.
The Labrego Union already denounced that the EU was once again using the countryside “as a currency”
At the moment there have not been too many reactions to the announcement of this new agreement, but a few weeks after it was signed, the Galician Labrego Union, a nationalist and progressive confederation of farmers and ranchers in Galicia, released a harsh statement criticizing what this text could mean for the countryside.
“Australia is one of the world’s largest producers of sheep and cattle and, therefore, is very interested in eliminating its tariffs so that these products enter the EU and the EU is once again ready to give in“, then warned Brais Álvarez, Secretary of Trade Union Action of the Labrego Union.
For Álvarez, the current community government with Ursula von der Leyen at the helm “is clear about which economic sectors it wants to promote internally in the EU and which it wants to be autonomous within it.”
From this approach, the leader of the Labrego Galego Union considers that for the European president and her team “agriculture and livestock are not one of them and it is not about guaranteeing security of supply and self-sufficiency of food to citizens; That’s why he allows himself the luxury of negotiating with food.”
