Australia, EU delay trade talks amid row

BRUSSELS/SYDNEY－A round of free-trade talks between the European Union and Australia has been postponed in the wake of a dispute over Canberra's decision to cancel a multibillion-dollar submarine deal with France, media reported.

Miriam Garcia Ferrer, the European Commission spokeswoman in charge of trade, confirmed the decision to The Associated Press on Friday but did not give any specific reason for the postponement.

An EU official in Canberra told Agence France-Presse that the FTA trade round has been postponed "for a month until November", throwing the future of the far-reaching pact into doubt.

But with both Australia and France heading to elections in early 2022, that timeline now appears optimistic.

The EU launched negotiations for a trade agreement with Australia in 2018. The 12th round of talks was due later this month.

Australia had signed the A$90 billion ($66 billion) deal with French majority state-owned Naval Group in 2016 to build 12 conventional diesel-electric submarines. But Prime Minister Scott Morrison canceled the deal last month as part of an alliance with the United States and the United Kingdom that will deliver an Australian fleet of at least eight nuclear-powered submarines.

The move not only angered France but also prompted criticism from European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen.

France has accused the US and Australia of betrayal over the canceled contract and the replacement trilateral alliance negotiated in secret. France briefly recalled its ambassador from Washington in protest and there is no word of when a French ambassador might return to Australia.

Former Australian prime minister Malcolm Turnbull this past week said Morrison, his successor and former party colleague, "deliberately deceived" France in scrapping the deal. "France believes it has been deceived and humiliated, and she was. This betrayal of trust will dog our relations with Europe for years," he said.

According to EU data, the 27-nation EU represented Australia's third-largest trading partner in 2020, after China and Japan, ahead of the US.

Agencies via Xinhua