"Australia-EU relations and the Common Agricultural Policy since 1970: Causes and consequences of policy failure"

It is more or less commonplace that Australian-European Community (EC) relations have had a less than satisfactory history, and that disagreements with respect to the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) have been at the core of the problem. Australia’s present claim has been that it was the worst-affected of all nations by the CAP. It is the purpose of this paper, then, to redress this situation by turning to a variety of primary and secondary sources which have not yet been applied to this purpose, so as to examine the history of Australian-EC relations, the fundamental issues, and the diplomatic processes and outcomes which have resulted. The paper suggests that the history of Australia-EC relations falls into four distinct phases: 1) 1970-75: Australia’s adjustment to the UK’s accession to the EC; 2) 1976-1986: head-to-head negotiations over agriculture and diplomatic disaster; 3) 1986-1993: negotiations through the GATT; 4) 1994- ; reconciliation and broadening of the relationship. As will be seen, the paper concludes that while Australia has had some cause to be aggrieved by the CAP, its diplomatic response has lacked the finesse required to resolve the problems, and indeed has been the major contributor to their development