The EU's and Australia's approaches to trade bilateralism: discrepancies and synergies

Abstract

We examine the EU’s and Australia’s approaches to trade bilateralism, placing both actors in a comparative historical context and analysing potential synergies and obstacles to their bilateral FTA negotiation currently underway. We show how the EU and Australia try to balance the deepening of the trade agenda with social goals in their respective bilateral deals, converging on advancing trade-plus issues but diverging over sustainable development clauses. Understanding these synergies and discrepancies is particularly pressing given the recent global backlash to free trade and the need for public support for any future agreement advancing the liberal, rules-based order. We argue that the dee..