German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock wanted to further expand defense cooperation with Australia, she said on the first day of her trip to the country.
However, she did not name any specific projects on Friday after a meeting with her counterpart Penny Wong in Adelaide, South Australia.
“The defense cooperation between Germany and Australia is close and we want to deepen it further,” said Baerbock.
Ultimately, both countries are in a situation “where we have to assume similar threats,” she added, pointing to the threats from Russia to Europe and China to Australia.
Baerbock underlined the willingness to cooperate in the defense sector with a visit to the Osborne shipyard, where the German company Lürssen is building six patrol boats for the Australian Navy, one of which the minister visited.
Another German-Australian flagship project in the defense sector is the production of 123 Boxer wheeled armored vehicles from the German manufacturer Rheinmetall in Australia, which are to be delivered to the Bundeswehr between 2025 and 2030.
Next week, the German frigate Baden-Württemberg and a supply ship will set off for a training mission lasting several months in the Pacific.
Australian Foreign Minister Penny Wong praised Germany’s commitment to the Indo-Pacific region.
“We welcome the way Germany exerts its influence in the world and in our region,” she said. Australia is seeking a stronger economic and strategic partnership with Germany, she added.
After meeting Wong, Baerbock officially returned cultural artifacts to the Kaurna Aboriginal tribe.
These are a wooden sword, a spear, a fishing net and a club that were sent to Germany by two missionaries in the 19th century and were most recently exhibited in the Leipzig Gassi Museum of Ethnology.
“Each of these objects holds countless stories. Stories about how the Kaurna people lived over 150 years ago,” said Baerbock at the handover ceremony in Adelaide, the capital of South Australia.
She said she wanted to honor the Kaurna people’s spiritual relationship with their land.
Baerbock had planned to hand over the cultural assets personally last August. However, she had to cancel her trip on the way there due to breakdowns in her government plane.
The Grassi Museum then brought the artifacts to Australia on its own initiative. The handover is now officially sealed with the ceremony on Friday in Adelaide.
The proportion of Australia’s indigenous population is now around 4%. Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander history goes back 60,000 years. Before British colonization in the late 18th century, there were around 700 tribes. Of the 300 languages back then, only 20 are still spoken today.
Australia is the first stop on Baerbock’s week-long trip to the Indo-Pacific region.
Australia is the sixth largest country in the world in terms of area, but is relatively sparsely populated with around 26 million inhabitants.
It is a member of the G20 group of leading economic powers and supports Ukraine with weapons in its defense against Russia, despite the geographical distance.
