Some Australian commentators seemed surprised when Prime Minister Anthony Albanese recently announced he would accept European Commission chief Ursula von der Leyen’s invitation to formalise an Australia–EU Strategic and Defence Partnership (SDP). Perhaps the policy watchers had ignored the fact that a deeper Australia–Europe engagement agenda had quietly been gathering momentum for some time.
One early signal was the reinstatement of Europe as a full Division in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. Another was the appointment of Angus Campbell, former Chief of Australia’s Defence Force, as Canberra’s Ambassador to the European Union. And the newly re-elected Albanese government has made a priority of restarting – and successfully concluding – negotiations over the Australia–EU Free Trade Agreement.
Australia and Europe are facing the same types of threats: attempts by authoritarian and capricious nations to undermine established rules, fragment partnerships, and subvert the national resilience of smaller states.
Simultaneously, many European states have delivered (or are formulating) national strategies on the Indo-Pacific, and the European Union has already concluded SPDs with Japan and South Korea. While open-ended and light on detail, the point of such agreements is to put in place frameworks for cooperation and then build on them, rather than negotiate complex and granular accords overburdened with obligations and benchmarks.
Motives and rationales
Australian critics of deeper Europe engagement predictably scoff here. Where is the utility, they ask, of concluding agreements with a supranational institution far away from Australia? Why engage with a Europe distracted by Russian adventurism, and worried about NATO’s viability? And how much can Europe help anyway, given its less-than-stellar track record on securing its own backyard?
Such views are myopic. There are abundant reasons to enhance Europe–Australia ties. First, it makes structural sense because global and regional uncertainty is a key factor driving mutual desires for deeper cooperation. As France’s President Emmanuel Macron observed in his keynote address at the 2025 Shangri-La Dialogue in Singapore, powerful actors now seek not only spheres of influence, but “spheres of coercion”.
In other words, Australia and Europe are facing the same types of threats: attempts by authoritarian and capricious nations to undermine established rules, fragment partnerships, and subvert the national resilience of smaller states. They do so in multifaceted ways, including economic coercion, cyberattacks, campaigns to weaken societies from within, and using military power to compel and coerce others.
But the systemic argument for a closer relationship goes further. As both Foreign Minister Penny Wong and Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Richard Marles have pointed out, Australia and Europe occupy an increasingly shared strategic space. By dragging North Korea into its illegal and unprovoked war against Ukraine, Russia has made the conflict a multi-regional one. Moscow has also significantly accelerated its efforts to induce and suborn Indo-Pacific elites after realising that Asia, not Europe, will drive its future economic prosperity. At the very least, making Australia more Europe-literate (and Russia-literate) under those circumstances makes eminent sense.
Meanwhile, China has become increasingly interested in Europe, which has correctly responded with caution to Beijing’s attempts to promote itself as the world’s sole remaining integrative power. Indeed, increasing Sino–Russian alignment means that Europe has a China problem – and Australia has a Russia problem – and not just the other way around.
An agenda for cooperation
Naturally, we should be realistic about the limits of Australia–EU alignment. Clearly, it will not alter power dynamics in either region. We are unlikely to see large numbers of Australian troops on Russia’s borders, just as Indo-Pacific skies will remain unpatrolled by Czech warplanes.
But there are tangible and mutually beneficial outcomes from deepening cooperation. Working together, Europe and Australia can achieve much, for instance, in addressing and proactively mitigating hostile information operations (known in the European Union as Foreign Information Manipulation and Interference, or FIMI).
Secure nations are resilient ones, and national resilience is a whole-of-society (and not just a whole-of-government) endeavour.
Here, Europe would benefit from Australia’s extensive experience in responding to Chinese economic and political coercion. And the European External Action Service (EEAS) has significant expertise in dealing with Russian disinformation campaigns. So too do individual EU member states. Sweden, Finland and Estonia – not to mention Poland – have extensive experience addressing hybrid threats ranging from cyberattacks to lawfare and sabotage.
Protecting critical infrastructure, especially undersea, is another arena for cooperation: Australian and maritime European telecommunications nodes are acute vulnerabilities. In space, Australia could help facilitate mid-latitude satellite networks for communications as well as intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance (ISR) missions. And, of course, an Australia–EU SDP would unlock European defence procurement, ameliorating anxieties around access to defence material.
More than just security and defence
But the cooperation agenda goes beyond narrow conceptions of security and defence. Secure nations are resilient ones, and national resilience is a whole-of-society (and not just a whole-of-government) endeavour.
The recent address to Australia’s National Press Club by Gabriele Visentin, the EU’s Ambassador to Australia, is instructive here. He noted that both Canberra and Brussels had shared approaches and interests in prosperity, security and accountable democracy.
Indeed, trade and investment – including through FTAs – offers obvious strategic benefits. Diversified partnerships help address geoeconomic challenges and supply chain vulnerabilities, and they provide a basis for advancing critical and emergent technologies such as artificial intelligence and clean energy. Similarly, both the European Union and Australia are strong advocates for an order built on rules and international law, with the capacity to shape regional narratives around good governance, transparency and strategic stability.
Hence, wondering whether to enhance Europe–Australia relationships should require only minimal thought. The threats we face, our political and normative alignment, and our preference for free and liberal trade are all shared. And while it will not magically smooth the complex and fraught security order we must navigate, it would be a missed opportunity if we did not try to chart that course together.
