Australian Foreign Minister Marise Payne will fly to Paris next month to meet counterparts from Asia, and the Pacific and East African regions as well as with French and European officials at the Ministerial Forum of Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific on February 22.
Payne’s office confirmed she received the invitation to attend the Ministerial Forum. However, there is no confirmation yet if Payne would attend. A spokesperson for the Minister told ABC News, “We welcome the invitation from France and the European Union to attend the Ministerial Forum for Cooperation in the Indo-Pacific in February.” adding, “Australia greatly values cooperation with France and with Europe, including in the Indo-Pacific.”
Few details are available about the meeting, though it is believed that European leaders aim to boost their strategic autonomy and increase investment in the Indo Pacific to counter China’s rising power and influence in the region. Reportedly, neither the United States (US) nor China has been invited to the meeting.
Some believe Payne would use the platform to build and mend ties between Australia and France after the former abandoned a $90 billion dollar submarine contract with France for a new trilateral military partnership with the US and the United Kingdom (UK) called AUKUS.
The partnership was launched in September to counter China’s growing influence in the Indo-Pacific region. Under the deal, Australia would build a fleet of nuclear-powered submarines with the technology shared by the partners. When Australia withdrew from the multi-billion dollar deal with France in favour of this partnership, the latter called it a “stab in the back.”
In November last year, French Foreign Affairs Minister Jean-Yves Le Drian said the bilateral relationship between France and Australia remains rocky over the scrapped submarine deal. “We thought we had a good industrial partnership. It came to an end in a second, out of the blue. This is not correct, but so be it,” he said. “Within NATO, the United States and the United Kingdom are our allies. Of course, Australia is not a part of it,” he added.
Subsequently, Paris withdrew its ambassadors from Canberra and Washington. However, after much persuasion and measures, the ambassadors were sent back to rebuild the relationship between these countries.
The dispute further escalated when French President Emmanuel Macron said that Australian Prime Minister Scott Morrison had lied to him about the submarine contract. Consequently, this miffed Australian ministers who reiterated that Macron was aware of Australia looking for alternatives to the French agreement.
Since then, there has been no public reconciliation between the two countries, so the invitation to Australia indicates France’s willingness to cooperate with them.