Third Australia-Europe Economic Relations Dialogue

This event series originally brought together a group of participants invited by the co-organizers, being the University of Adelaide and Johns Hopkins SAIS in Bologna. For this third iteration we turned to Friedrich Schiller University in Jena, Germany.

As with the previous two Dialogues the theme was Australia-Europe economic relations, the European part being anchored on Germany as the key European economy. We continued with the successful, relatively informal, Dialogue format followed in the previous versions, with the emphasis on intimate, substantive conversations behind closed doors.

We anchored the structure on contemporary matters framing evolving international trade agendas for both Australia and Germany/Europe: evolving geopolitical and security relations; the climate agenda and sustainability more broadly; and digital trade governance.

Altogether some 35 participants took part, with the bulk being German/European. As this was a closed-doors discussion no recordings were made, and we did not attempt to produce a meeting report. This format encouraged very frank exchanges of views, and a variety of mutual learnings as different approaches to the complex topics being covered were compared.

Proceedings were capped by a post-conference dinner at which the Australian Ambassador to Germany, and himself a key conference participant, presented a keynote address.

Read full program here

See full list of participants