EU FTA Finalised But Text Not Published: More Details Needed For Public Scrutiny

Australia and the EU today announced the finalisation of Free Trade Agreement negotiations, and released selected summaries of their content but the full text of the agreement has not yet been released and will not be signed until late 2026. It will then be reviewed by a parliamentary committee which cannot change the text before parliament votes on the implementing legislation in 2027.

Dr Patricia Ranald, AFTINET convener, said today:

“The summaries reveal information about tariff reductions and access to EU markets but there are up to 30 chapters in the EU which deal with a wide range of issues. We won’t know the full story until the full text is released.

“AFTINET welcomes the announcements in summary statements that Investor rights to sue governments known as ISDS have been excluded from the agreement and that commitments to labour rights, women’s rights, Indigenous rights and environmental and climate standards are included, but we await the text for full details of how they will be implemented.

“At the beginning of negotiations, EU pharmaceutical companies were pushing for longer data protection monopolies on medicines to match the EU standard of 8-10 years (Australia has five years). This is in addition to the 20-year patent monopolies on all new medicines. This would delay access to cheaper medicines and cost Australian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars per year. We hope that this proposal has been dropped but we need to see the text to be sure.

“The digital trade summary reveals limits on regulation of data storage and prohibitions on regulation of algorithms and source code. Given the experience of tax evasion by digital companies, data abuse scandals, the development of gig economy jobs without labour rights, and the rapid development of artificial intelligence and fake news we need to see the text to know whether governments retain the right to regulate for stronger privacy and other protections for consumers and workers.

“The EU business opportunities summary claims ‘greater access for EU companies to Australian government procurement contracts.’ Australia currently excludes local government procurement from trade agreements and has preferential government procurement provisions for Australian local small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs). We need to see the text to clarify if these provisions have been retained. If not, this could conflict with Labor government plans to use government procurement as part of local industry development for renewable energy and other industries.”

AFTINET will provide a full analysis of the EUFTA text when it becomes available.

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