Trade talks kicked off in 2018 but Canberra walked away about 18 months ago over unsatisfactory market access for beef and lamb producers, and a reluctance to give up naming rights on products for geographical origin reasons, including feta, parmesan and prosecco.
Fast forward to 2025 and US President Donald Trump's tariff antics have brought both parties back to the negotiating table.
There was speculation of a quick conclusion with the Australian Financial Review reporting European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had flagged a trip to Australia for late July or early August in anticipation of signing a deal.
This echoed the fact she had also been quick to flag an agreement while offering Anthony Albanese her congratulations on becoming prime minister via Twitter in 2022.
But multiple EU spokespeople have declined to confirm the travel, telling AAP a Down Under trip is "not on the radar".
Despite acknowledging renewed political will, various sources in Brussels are cautioning patience.
"There is no rush," according to one inside the EU Commission.
"I wouldn't even say the end of the year, I would say more next year."
Jacob Funk Kirkegaard, a senior fellow with Brussels think-tank Bruegel, estimates it could take at least another six months to resolve outstanding issues on agricultural tariffs and quotas.
"The broad contour of the deal is already negotiated," he told AAP.
"They know where the skeletons are buried. It takes a political grand bargain to do it."
He noted that if the EU makes concessions, it would likely encounter an angry backlash from French and Polish farmers, who also opposed the EU's deal last year with Argentina, Brazil, Paraguay and Uruguay.
However tractor and manure street protests wouldn't be enough to block a deal with Canberra, he said.
Amid Washington's shift to extreme trade protectionism, an EU-Australian free trade deal would send a strong message to the Trump administration, Kirkegaard said.
"As two of America's traditional allies, if both the EU and Australia find themselves subject to US tariffs, what better way than to do a deal with each other," he said.
"So perhaps both countries feel this political signal is kind of a middle finger to Trump as well."
Back in Melbourne, Sicilian-born cheesemaker Giorgio Linguanti from That's Amore Cheese faces an anxious wait to find out whether he can continue to market his wares using generic terms like parmesan or mozzarella.
Yet he is open to compromise.
"We should call it Australian parmesan and Australian feta because Australian milk is the best in the world," he said.
Canberra and Brussels announced on Wednesday separate negotiations on a defence pact to boost defence industry, cyber-security and counter-terrorism co-operation.
But it would not have military deployment obligations.
