The trust-based relationship among the long-time partners and allies – the United Kingdom, Australia, the United States, and France – are now in jeopardy. France responded with fury to the announcement that it had been pushed out of a multibillion-dollar deal to supply submarines to Australia, calling the move a “stab in the back”.
It all began with AUKUS, a trilateral security pact between Australia, the United Kingdom, and the United States. This partnership was greeted with outrage in France. Later, when Australia scrapped a deal for French submarines, it made the government absolutely enraged. France even recalled its ambassadors to the US and Australia. “Keeping one's word is the condition of trust between democracies and between allies. So it is unthinkable to move forward on trade negotiations as if nothing had happened with a country in which we no longer trust,” Clément Beaune, France's secretary of state for European affairs said in a statement.
In response, France has tried to delay negotiations on the bloc’s future trade agreement with Australia. Although the European Commission has the right to hold such negotiations on behalf of all member countries, it will have to pay due regard to the stance taken by France. According to Bernd Lange, Chair of the European Parliament's Committee on International Trade, the events that unfolded after AUKUS and Australia ditching France only complicate and delay negotiations on an EU-Australia free trade deal. The official said Australia’s decision to end the deal was “kind of an attack against European interests.”
