EU's top diplomat Federica Mogherini talks trade and Pacific in first visit to New Zealand

The European Union's foreign minister, Federica Mogherini, welcomed New Zealand's so-called "Pacific Reset" in a visit to Wellington today and said she wanted to increase co-operation between the EU and New Zealand in the region.

She held a working lunch with Foreign Minister Winston Peters and called on Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern during her visit – the first of any EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs, their term for foreign minister.

Mogherini, a former Foreign Minister of Italy, is visiting at a time when the European Union is taking an increasingly important leadership role over free trade and security in the face of uncertainty over the United States' commitments in those areas.

She talked about the Pacific, and security issues, including the Iran deal which she had a major role in negotiating and which Donald Trump has trashed, and the freshly launched free trade talks between New Zealand and the EU.

"That is a signal to the rest of the world that there are countries around the world, even far away geographically, that are upholding the free trade agenda world wide."

Trump has also ended Trans Atlantic free trade talks between the US and the EU.

Mogherini told reporters the EU had agreed to increase co-operation with New Zealand in the area of security and in their work in the Pacific.

"We welcome the approach has developed on the Pacific and we are ready to cooperate very closely with New Zealand in this area that is very far away geographically for us but very strategically important for the security and stability of the world.

The Pacific Reset was announced by Peters in February this year and he secured a $714 million funding boost for overseas aid over four years, in a move applauded as a more meaningful challenge to China's deep pockets.

She said New Zealand and the EU already had worked closely on energy projects in the Pacific but could co-operate more on climate change, oceans policy.

"We will have our teams sitting together and seeing in which specific policy areas and which specific development projects we can co-operate together because put together our development co-operation budgets are definitely, and by far, the biggest ones."

Asked if the uncertainty by the US elevated the EU as a global leader, Mogherini said it was not for her to say.

"For sure the European Union has its own limits. We are complex. Sometimes we are slow. Sometimes being slow allows you to reflect on the things you are doing but one thing is for sure: with the European Union you always have a reliable, predictable solid partner."