Five years down under

As I prepare myself - not without some nostalgy - to turn the EABC chapter and start a new life in Paris, I wanted to share a few lines on my Australian experience and more particularly my incredibly enriching time at the EABC where I worked alongside fantastic teammates, members and partners in both Team Europe and Team Australia, and lived some unforgettable moments.????

Let me first acknowledge that I came to Australia with a very limited understanding of the country, basically relying on my reading of Bill Bryson’s hilarious Down Under, and on a semester of my Erasmus year in 2007 spent in a shared accommodation with two great mates from Ballarat, Victoria. Enough reasons for me to believe that Australia was a fair dinkum country, and to leave my Brussels bubble for the Southern hemisphere.

I vividly remember my first day in the country, wandering around in the local Coles for groceries and pleasantly surprised by the similarities with stores on the old continent. “They’ve got Camembert Président!” I even told my partner. After taking the time to travel from coast to coast and come across some of the most spectacular landscapes and wildlife I have ever seen, I started what would be a five-year adventure with the European Australian Business Council (EABC) in gorgeous Sydney – making my Brussels-based friends intensely jealous. This was August 2016.

From that moment on, one of the most enjoyable aspects of my time with the EABC has been the constant feeling of being at the right place, at the right time, with the right people. 2016 was a geopolitical watershed, marked by the Brexit referendum, the Trump election (and Russia’s meddling), and Xi Jinping’s elevation to the “core leader” status, reinforcing China’s continuously increasing assertiveness with the West. ?

These three events would deeply influence the content of our discussions with business and political leaders in the years to come; and trying to understand and analyse their many implications for Australia, Europe, and globally, would largely shape my policy work with the organisation.

On the bright side, this new geopolitical era and context of tensions and uncertainty saw Australia and the EU set some historical disagreements aside and work more closely together. Major milestones included the launch of a scoping exercise towards a “comprehensive and ambitious” Free Trade Agreement (FTA), followed by the inauguration of the EU-Australia Leadership Forum that same year, the signing of the Framework Agreement in 2017 (a political treaty that deepened and broadened collaboration in a wide range of strategic sectors), and the launch of FTA negotiations in June 2018 – all happening in a context of increased diplomatic visits, co-operation in multilateral fora, and joint dialogues on many fronts. To quote EABC Chair Emeritus Hon Nick Greiner AC, the Europe-Australia relationship clearly reached a “sweet spot” – and I believe this will continue to define the bilateral relationship for the years to come.

The Emerging and Senior Leaders from the 2017 EU-Australia Leadership Forum in Sydney, Australia

From 2016 to 2021 I had the privilege to lead the EABC’s policy work, building on the momentum and promoting the relationship between Europe and Australia as likeminded partners sharing strategic interests in the Indo-Pacific region, and a common attachment to the rule of law, to democracy, and to the multilateral rules-based order. Our objective was to make sure that the bilateral relationship remained high on both sides’ political agendas, regularly engaging with governments, parliamentarians, business, and the civil society on both sides, and facilitating an essential dialogue between business and government on many key topics. Even the pandemic did not interrupt this work, and if anything COVID-19 further strengthened bilateral linkages, as technology brought an effective response to the tyranny of distance. ??

These were fascinating times - for the content of our discussions, for their global context, and for the profile of both our members and our interlocutors, who were history being made. At a personal level, taking part in these high-level meetings was incredibly stimulating, and it was a unique opportunity for a (still young) professional to work and engage with experts on such a broad range of topics – from geopolitical issues, international trade, foreign investment, to research and innovation, financial regulation, industry 4.0, energy and climate change, corporate governance, and many many others.

On the EABC itself, one fact says it all: in Australia’s history, the Australian Governor-General only ever led two overseas business missions. Both times involved the EABC, with the GG joining a group of business leaders to profile Australia’s credentials as a strategic and commercial partner for Europe – this was in 2013 when Dame Quentin Bryce led the EABC visit to Austria, Belgium, Slovakia and France; and in 2018 with the EABC visit to France, Spain and Portugal led by Sir Peter Cosgrove. I had the honour and privilege to join the latter, along with two other European missions in 2017 and 2019 led by then-Australian Finance Minister Mathias Cormann, and I will always keep glorious memories of these visits. The missions also reinforced the sentiment of actively contributing to bringing Australia and Europe more closely together, and the feeling of “right place, right time, right people”.

The EABC Delegation with His Majesty Felipe VI, King of Spain, at the Zarzuela Palace (2018)

From these missions and the discussions held in Australia, my key takeaway would be that the geopolitical thing is very real. Although our generation grew up in an “end of history” paradigm and with the idea that liberal democracies would slowly take over the last pockets of resistance, we are now confronted to a much more complex, fluid and uncertain environment, with major implications for governments, business, universities and citizens, and many unprecedented challenges ahead of us (in particular in the cyber space - which might give away my next move). In that context business-government dialogue and collaboration among likeminded partners are undoubtedly crucial to preserve and protect the model that has ensured our civil rights, freedoms and prosperity for many decades.

With that in mind there is a bright future ahead for the Europe-Australia relationship – concluding comprehensive FTAs with the EU and the UK will be a major milestone, but I believe that even greater opportunities lie beyond their scope - in the many strategic sectors that will define our economies and societies in the coming decades: the sustainable transition, R&D collaboration, smart city, cybersecurity, AI standards, advanced manufacturing, and many others.

Now I couldn’t possibly write about my time in Australia without mentioning Jason and Jo, who made the EABC what it is today, a reputable, influential and trustworthy organisation with an extended network in both Europe and Australia. I will keep very fond memories of what we pulled off together, always with panache, humour, and an indestructible sense that everything is always possible if we put what it takes into the task – and I wish them all the very best.

From my end I will of course keep a strong interest in bilateral developments and aim to support where/when I can, as a fervent advocate of closer ties between Europe and Australia. Australia is definitely a special place on Earth, combining all the perks of a highly sophisticated economy and society with pure wilderness, making it the best lifestyle I have experienced so far. For the time being I will trade my daily surf/ferry/latte routine for a bicycle/metro/croissant one, but I do hope that future winds will one day bring me back onto Australian shores…