Source: New Zealand Government
Ka nui te mihi ki a koutou.
Ka mihi ki te mana whenua ko Ngāti Whātua Ōrākei.
Kia ora and good morning everyone – its great to be with you today.
Before I begin, I’d especially like to welcome EU Trade Commissioner Maroš Šefčovič who has just arrived from Brussels, as well as the other political and diplomatic representatives from Europe including Lawrence Meredith the hard-working EU Ambassador to New Zealand.
Thank you to our European business colleagues who have travelled from half a world away to be with us this morning. I hope you enjoy your stay in New Zealand. More importantly, I hope you seize the opportunities to grow your businesses here.
And also a warm welcome to the numerous New Zealand businesspeople who work so hard every single day to create jobs and improve incomes for our people. Thank you for the work you do for our country.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is an honour to open this inaugural EU – New Zealand Business Summit. It fills a gap in the market for Kiwi businesses and government to meet and discuss one of the world’s most consequential economies.
For, while the European project at its beginning was fundamentally about creating a Europe, peaceful and united, it has also had the extraordinary co-benefit of unifying a single market. And, at 17% of global output, the EU today is the world’s second largest economy.
The European Union, with its 450 million consumers, enjoy some of the highest living standards in the world. The EU’s people are among the most highly educated and most innovative. Europe is home to vast pools of capital and ideas that Kiwis can access.
And this is a relationship that is paying dividends for both sides.
While the EU still enjoys a healthy trade surplus – exporting nearly twice as much to New Zealand as Europeans buy from us – we’re closing the gap fast with an extraordinary 28% increase in our exports since our Free Trade Agreement entered into force last year.
New Zealand’s relations with Europe are perhaps in the best shape they’ve been for a generation. Later in my remarks, I want to describe what that means for us as trading partners and innovation partners.
First, though, I want to describe the way in which the EU and New Zealand look out on the world in similar ways, before talking about how the two of us can work together as principled partners to try to shape the world in which we live.
So, let me begin by reflecting on the wider operating context that both Europe and New Zealand find ourselves in.
Whether in the Euro-Atlantic or here in the Indo-Pacific, we’re seeing the last generation’s geopolitical certainties upended. We’re in an era where the world is more volatile and more uncertain than in recent memory.
I would highlight three big shifts that make for challenging times.
First, we are seeing rules giving way to power.
For evidence of disregard for the rulebook, look no further than the way Russia tore up the United Nations Charter with its immoral invasion of Ukraine.
In a major speech last month, Ursula von der Leyen described Russia’s threat to Europe’s freedom and its independence as one where Moscow is drawing “battlelines for a new world order based on power”.
While at its most stark in Europe, it is not only Europe that is suffering the new reality of sharper competition undermining the rules-based order.
A slow shift in Indo-Pacific realities is also changing calculations. In our wider region, the exercise of power is increasing the risk of dangerous miscalculation between states.
Whether it’s border skirmishes across the Indo-Pacific raising the fearful spectre of war. Or whether its military activities designed to intimidate on the seas and in the skies. We’re seeing rules give way to power, with the risks of missteps rising.
Second, we are witnessing a shift from economics to security.
After the Cold War, the dominant paradigm was a sustained effort to raise material living standards. Make no mistake, “bread and butter” issues still loom large. Indeed, economic growth is my Government’s highest priority.
Yet, the reality is we are now in an era where you can’t have prosperity without security. Whether you like it or not, Governments are being forced to pay more attention to national security.
When the very tools of commerce are threatened by cyberattacks on computer networks and targeting of critical infrastructure, you can’t have prosperity without security.
When citizens and companies are fearful of military aggression, they won’t invest for the future. Faced by the hard reality of all-out war in Europe, that’s why the EU’s top priority is security and defence for the first time in its history. Indeed, we’re seeing increased security spend across the globe, including New Zealand’s commitment to a more capable Defence Force by doubling our own investment.
The third geo-economic shift is from efficiency to resilience.
Where previously, economies saw ever deeper interdependence as a dynamo for growth, that seems no longer the case for many.
Onshoring, industrial policy and trade wars are displacing best price, open markets, and integrated global supply chains.
And, so, we find ourselves in a world that is growing more difficult and more complex, especially for smaller states and those on the frontlines of geostrategic rivalry.
Ladies and gentlemen, a “might-is-right” world is neither in Europe nor New Zealand’s interests. But we engage with the world as it is, not as we wish it to be.
So, the challenge for us, as believers in global order, is to shape things using the agency we have. Small countries can make a big difference when we work together with principled partners.
Let me give you two specific examples of New Zealand and Europe doing exactly this.
First, New Zealand is partnering with Europe to defend our shared values and interests in the face of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.
Unlike Moscow, we believe in democracy and a country’s right to determine its future. Unlike President Putin, we believe in rules and the United Nations Charter that he so flagrantly flouts.
But, in the world, just as in business, the standard you walk past is the standard you accept. Letting Russia get away with violating Ukraine’s sovereignty is to accept its behaviour as a new global standard. Not just in Europe, but here in the Indo-Pacific, too.
Euro-Atlantic security is not so easily separated from that of the Indo-Pacific, particularly when we see tens of thousands of North Korean soldiers fighting at the frontlines for Russia.
And right here at home, Russia’s illegal war in Europe has caused real pain. While we are at long last triumphing over the scourge of inflation, let’s not forget that it was Russia’s illegal invasion in 2022 that drove food and fuel prices through the roof in the first place.
When I was in the UK, Sir Keir Starmer and I met with Kiwi and Ukrainian soldiers training side-by-side. It is no small thing that a country half a world away in the South Pacific has its largest military deployment in Europe.
But what made a far bigger impression on me was talking with Ukrainian soldiers who, in just a matter of days, were back on the frontline facing Russian bullets and drones. As they defend their homeland, we will continue to be beside them in their fight.
Ladies and gentlemen, my second example of New Zealand and Europe working together as principled partners relates to trade.
Now, the World Trade Organisation is not perfect. But the reality is New Zealand and Europe’s exporters have thrived with the certainty it has delivered for 30 years of open trade governed by rules.
Today’s trade tensions expose the fracture-lines that have been building in the world trade system for a decade or more. Our interests lie in sustaining open trade, so I don’t want us to be bystanders as the system degrades.
By working together as principled partners, I believe Europe and New Zealand can shape outcomes that sustain the rules.
Together, the EU and CPTPP countries comprise 30% of global trade – about the same proportion as do China and the United States.
In several conversations, President van der Leyen and I have agreed that, if the EU and CPTPP come together and agree between ourselves that we will not take actions that undermine the fundamental rules the multilateral trading system is founded upon, that will be an enormous injection of confidence into the system.
I’m delighted that, next month, Commissioner Šefčovič will participate in the first EU-CPTPP Dialogue, which is aimed at doing just that.
It’s a practical demonstration of how our work together as principled partners can deliver on the fundamental idea that our exporters should compete on a level playing field internationally.
Ladies and gentlemen, the EU-New Zealand Free Trade Agreement embodies the ideal of that level playing field. The FTA is an absolute step change for sectors that were previously constrained by quotas and tariffs.
With the EU our fourth largest export destination, I need not explain to you how critical New Zealand’s business connections with Europe are to delivering on my Government’s growth agenda.
Since the Free Trade Agreement with the EU came into force last May, two-way trade has grown by $1.7 billion. That’s growth that represents real money in the back pockets of our primary producers.
It’s not only primary exports that are doing well courtesy of the EU FTA: I saw first-hand in Brussels the success of Auckland’s own autonomous shuttle manufacturer, Ohmio, which is selling its innovative vehicles into the EU after the FTA saw a 10% tariff removed.
Other Kiwi companies are following their lead, including Seequent and the Pure Food Company, both of which have established themselves in the EU and are busily scaling up their businesses to succeed.
With one in four of our jobs coming from exports, the EU FTA creates more opportunities for high-value jobs at home. And it diversifies the set of markets open to our businesses as we seek to lift our economic resilience.
For a Government going after a doubling in the value of New Zealand’s exports by 2034, the EU FTA is a great result. One we will continue to build on as additional sectors become duty-free over the next few years.
Our economic relationship with the EU delivers on our Going for Growth Plan in many more ways than just through exports.
When I was in the Netherlands in June, I met a series of European investors, many of whom have since announced new investments.
IKEA, with its first store in New Zealand opening in December. New Cold, which is investing in automated cold storage logistics in Auckland.
Many other European companies are thriving courtesy of their partnerships with New Zealand.
France’s Alstom has just sealed a deal, selling a fleet of eighteen state-of-the-art battery-electric trains, which will allow Wellington commuters to get where they need to go quickly, safely and with lower emissions.
Zespri has licenced its kiwifruit varieties to Italian growers to ensure year-round supply. Indeed, it’s just licensed 170 hectares of one of its most innovative varietals, RubyRed.
Ladies and gentlemen, if New Zealand is going to create the kinds of high-growth businesses and high-income jobs we want and need, we have to get better at commercialising our amazing science and technology.
Under our Going for Growth Plan, my Government has prioritised a more strategic innovation system that enables New Zealand to keep pace with global change by directing investment towards research priorities that have real commercial potential.
In that, we’re lucky to have a first-mover advantage because we are associated with one of the world’s greatest sources of innovation. The EU’s Horizon Europe is the world’s biggest multilateral funder of science and innovation. And Kiwi researchers can access that on equal terms with their European counterparts.
Right now, Horizon Europe helps Kiwi researchers collaborate with European counterparts on more than 20 projects, ranging from designing virtual replicas of individual patient’s bodies to test treatments, through to new methods for hydrogen storage to solve our energy crisis.
And there’s room for growth in businesses’ technology partnerships in other ways in Europe. New Zealand sourced precision farming is in demand across the EU’s livestock sector. Kiwi firms like Orion Health and Aroa Biosurgery are making a difference with digital health solutions.
When I was in the Netherlands, I visited Dawn Aerospace, an incredible space transportation and satellite propulsion business, founded by two New Zealand brothers and their three European friends. With operations also out of Canterbury, it is doing remarkable things, moving satellites around in space and deploying a reusable space plane.
Finally, it’s great that Kiwi digital businesses, whether SaaS providers or fintech firms, can benefit from New Zealand having gained EU data adequacy status, which means personal data can flow freely between our jurisdictions without additional compliance burdens.
Ladies and gentlemen, it is in the New Zealand character to be outward focused and open to new ideas.
We will continue to work with Europe on the latest ideas that power 21st century open economies, including in areas like digital government and the safe and responsible use of artificial intelligence.
In wrapping up today, I offer this vision: a future where New Zealand and the European Union are not just trading partners — but innovation partners, principled partners, and strategic partners.
A future where our businesses thrive, our people prosper, and our shared values shape the global economy.
Let’s build that future together.
Thank you. Merci. Danke. Grazie. Kia ora.
