Following five years of discussions between Australian and British Governments, Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison and UK Prime Minister Boris Johnson announced this week agreement in principle on the terms of a Free Trade Agreement (FTA) between the two nations, see here.
This Agreement is as significant for its historic symbolism as it is for its direct trade benefits, as it marks the first Agreement to have been negotiated from scratch in the post-Brexit era for the British Government and further deepens the bilateral relationship between the two nations. The UK has entered into many other Free Trade Agreements since leaving the EU legal framework, but all of them until now have been continuity agreements, mirroring to a very large extent the corresponding EU agreement with that country from which the UK had previously benefitted as an EU Member State. This Australia agreement, by contrast has no EU parallel and therefore represents a tangible post-Brexit milestone for the “global Britain” concept. Read More.
