'Great migrant nation': Tries to shield Australian prosecco and feta from EU bans

Trade Minister Don Farrell has asked his European counterparts to recognize Australia as a "great nation of migrants" and not to force its producers to stop using terms like prosecco and feta.

In an interview from Berlin, Farrell said he hoped to strike a free trade deal with the European Union early in the new year because he had received an "overwhelmingly positive response in every country we visited".

But Farrell - who has also visited Paris and Brussels in fortnight - said Australia was not budging on a key sticking point: the EU's desire to protect product names linked to specific geographical regions.

"Everywhere I went I made it clear that these are important issues for Austr foreign producers," he told the Guardian Australia.

Farrell quoted figures that one in four Australians were born overseas and one in two have a parent born overseas.

< p class="dcr-2v2zi4">"Many of the migrants who came to Australia, of course, came from places like Greece and Italy. They brought their culture with them; they also brought their food,” he said.

“They feel very attached to these products and one of my tasks was to explain to Europeans how much our communities - our European communities - feel the connection to these products.

Farrell said Australia does not believe GIs should be part of the EU FTA. "We haven't changed our position on this," he said. hypothetical" and he would have "a better idea" after the next round of formal negotiations in February.

Farrell said he also used his meetings in Europe to advocate in favor of investing in critical Australian minerals, such as those needed to produce batteries.

“The Europeans understand that we are going to be a tremendous source of these critical minerals which will decarbonize their economies - and that will be a very important feature of any free trade agreement,” he said.

“We want to add value to products and we believe we can use and be helped by European investment and technology to extract these critical minerals from the ground."

The EU is already the third largest trader partner, but Australian negotiators are pushing for better market access for r agricultural exports. Farrell invited EU Trade Commissioner Valdis Dombrovskis to visit Australia.

EU talks were postponed when the Morrison government canceled the contract for French submarines caused a diplomatic rift with France.

Another long-standing sticking point was the former government's refusal to engage in more ambitious climate policies, as the EU wants to include a strong commitment to the Paris agreement in the FTA.

Farrell said he detected, in Europe, " an audible sigh of relief that the government has changed and we are now on the same footing as them on important issues, but particularly climate change, which has been brought up everywhere I go.”

Chairman of the European Union Parliament's Environment Committee, Pascal Canfin, confirmed that an Australian FTA would be " banned” without including strong climate commitments.

Canfin said the EU's FTA with New Zealand includes a process to suspend tariff reductions if a party was starting to undermine the Paris agreement.

"It's a kind of nuclear weapon that you're very reluctant to use," Canfin told Guardian Australia.< / p>

"I don't see how we could, in the European Parliament, find a majority to ratify any agreement with Australia without such a climate clause, exactly as we do had on New Zealand.”

Canfi...