The coming of AUKUS – awkward for the EU?

The trilateral security pact announced in September between the US, Australia and the UK, known as AUKUS, is aimed at bolstering efforts to maintain stability in the Indo-Pacific region. It includes the supply of nuclear powered submarines to Australia, displacing a previous contract with France, which reacted strongly to it. China claimed that it ‘undermines peace and intensifies the arms race’. The pact comes at a time when the EU is attempting to raise its game in the region. The EU’s new Indo-Pacific strategy was announced at the same time as AUKUS, though there seems to have been little prior coordination between it and the AUKUS parties. The pact may also have impeded progress in the EU-Australia Free Trade Agreement talks, and in the aftermath of the Afghanistan pullout caused a further erosion of EU trust in its US ally. This exchange will explore the consequences of this development for the EU’s ambitions in Asia and for its relationship with the US, prospects for EU-Australian relations, notably the FTA, and more generally, whether it will have the effect of strengthening the arguments of those who support greater European strategic autonomy.

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