EU-Australia Relations at Fifty: Reassessing a Troubled Relationship

This article critically examines the Australia-EU relationship over the past five decades or so. A narrow formulation of Australia's national interests has become transformed into a broader engagement, with an increasingly regionalised and multilateralised common agenda. The article argues that the relationship changed because of a number of factors. The first is Australia's changing relationship with the UK as interlocutor and market. The second is the eventual diminution of the pivotal role of a single policy, agriculture. The third is the transformation of the EU's international role, with impact on Australia. The fourth is the development of both traditional and non-traditional security concerns that were increasingly shared by each side. The fifth and final factor is the common interest in the Asia Pacific region.