Over time, these sectors are likely to create more value for New Zealand than our legacy food offerings will. We need to pay attention to this change, or we risk becoming less influential in the Europe of the future.
The old certainties are gone. Europeans can no longer take the American security guarantee for granted. Nor can we rely on a rules-based, multilateral order for just about anything. Those certainties had been under stress for years. Now they need to reshape for a different future.
Europe is thinking afresh about how it views itself and its partners around the world. In talking to European business leaders, business organisations and others, it is clear that Europe now has no choice but to pursue policies that enhance growth and improve productivity. This is about being able to continue to afford the vast social protection systems that the continent has created, but also to pay for its increased defence needs.
That push for growth and productivity, while still not as aggressive as many in European business would want, is nevertheless a big change from Europe’s old assumptions. And it is leading to very different conversations. Our still relatively new free-trade agreement (FTA) with the European Union is bearing fruit: literally in the case of Zespri, but with a slower burn for many other businesses that still don’t necessarily see Europe as a key source of growth. Perhaps those businesses should consider the opportunities of the new Europe. Ours is squarely aimed at that future. In my view, rightly so.
Now, European businesses and government organisations are interested in the New Zealand space story and whether we can supply critical minerals and high-tech manufactured products and digital assets that can contribute to a safer future. To give one example: food security in Europe is increasingly equated to national security. Much of Europe’s food logistics relies on truck drivers from Eastern Europe, many of whom are of conscription age, creating vulnerabilities if geopolitical tensions escalate.
Enterprising New Zealand businesses might think about how we can turn our existing offer of providing food into a conversation about food security, including technology and logistics that improve the resilience of Europe’s food supply chains. Perhaps there are conversations to be had around how resilience can be increased at a farm level with the kinds of digital tools that the best New Zealand farmers already use.
Another example: European infrastructure companies are increasingly interested and invested in New Zealand as we try to unwind our decades-old infrastructure deficit. The partnerships being created here could also be relevant to European infrastructure development, particularly in niche areas where we have globally recognised expertise.
All of this is in the context of increased European defence spending, explicitly envisaging complementary upgrades to European infrastructure like roads, bridges and enabling technologies. Whenever I meet senior leaders in Europe, they have always talked about New Zealand being a trusted partner. That has just become much more than simply a nice statement. Europeans increasingly want to work with partners they can trust, who do what they say they will do, and comply with the rules.
What is more, New Zealand is in the right place in the world geographically as the new realities emerge.
The EU is actively seeking stronger ties with Southeast Asian nations and wants to become a closer friend of the Comprehensive and Progressive Agreement for Trans-Pacific Partnership (CPTPP). We should loudly welcome these steps. Europe, after all, is one of the wealthiest groups of nations on earth and European nations have had long relationships with us and our neighbours, to our mutual benefit.
Just as Europe is reaching out in different ways, so the rest of the world is responding. The EU is currently negotiating an FTA with India on about the same timeline as us. The EU-Australia FTA will no doubt get a renewed dose of energy after stalling in the past.
To put it bluntly, while the EU is reaching out to others, others are also actively seeking stronger ties with the EU.
The old global order has gone. History tells us that a new order will eventually settle. We need to use this time of fluidity as a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to make ourselves more influential and more connected with Europe, rather than less. We must change how we think about Europe.
