Trade tour high-stakes trip for PM
Macron meeting must be priority number one for Jacinda Ardern.
There’s really only one objective for Jacinda Ardern. Blitzing through Europe on a week-long trade mission, priority number one is securing France’s support for a free-trade agreement with the European Union.
The Prime Minister is set to press the flesh with the continent’s biggest movers and shakers and while it’s not her international debut, there’s an awful lot depending on this diplomatic tour going well. To be precise, a $15 billion in two-way trade.
Ardern will meet the leaders of France, Germany and the UK, as well as a near full house of Commonwealth heads of government and the Queen, at the Commonwealth summit in London.
All will be crucial meetings, but for New Zealand’s interests, perhaps none are more important right now than the one with French President Emmanuel Macron.
Where Germany’s Chancellor Angela
Merkel is openly supportive of the EU doing a trade deal with New Zealand, France sits on the fence.
Agriculture – a perennial issue for this country – is the problem, and one that’s a sticking point with every other agreement we’ve struck – but one our negotiators have worked through time and time again.
Ardern will remind Macron of that, when she sits down with him at the Elysee Palace in Paris, for an hour-long bilateral discussion. Sixty minutes can be an aeon in the world of high-level diplomacy, but a millisecond when one considers the task: to persuade the leader of a global power that being part of a free-trade deal with New Zealand won’t hamstring its own agricultural sector, and to convince him to cast France’s vote in favour of a mandate to begin negotiations, when it’s expected to be considered in May.
France is only one vote in the 23-member bloc, and it isn’t the only country with some unease about the deal, but the hope is likely to be that if France can be persuaded, then others will follow.
Ardern is fresh on the scene, a novice but no fool.
Where former prime minister Sir John Key became something of an elder statesman in diplomatic circles by the time his eight years were up, Ardern hasn’t got the personal friendships yet that Key was able to use to New Zealand’s benefit.
Everyone has to start somewhere and Ardern will also look to reach common ground early.
That will include talking about shared work on climate change, global terrorism and security, and as two – technically – Pacific countries, an alignment against the threat of China seeking to militarise the region.
On a personal level, there’s no reason why Ardern and Macron shouldn’t get along. Both are respectively liberal and young politicians, who found themselves unlikely leaders after whirlwind campaigns.
While meetings with both Merkel and the UK’s Theresa May are critically important, New Zealand knows where it stands with those countries and the UK is on a longer timeline for a freetrade agreement FTA as it must first negotiate its exit from the EU.
It may be little more than a distraction now, but Ardern must leave the UK with no confusion about where this country stands in relation to the recent and likely Russian chemical attack against a former Russian double agent, on British soil.
A face-to-face assurance New Zealand has no intention of salvaging a trade deal with Russia will go down well, but is probably nothing more than a formality.
The priorities are clear and number one is free trade with Europe.
Straight out of the gate; where first meetings are often lighter affairs, on this the stakes don’t get much higher.
The priorities are clear and number one is free trade with Europe.