Australia has won praise for its recent commitments to protecting oceans in the region but European leaders would like to see the government step up further.
At the Our Ocean conference held in Malta earlier in October, Australia pledged $37 million to help Pacific countries adapt to and mitigate the impacts of climate change and almost another $27 million in other commitments, including measures to stop illegal fishing.
EU Commissioner for Environment and Maritime Affairs Karmenu Vella says Australia played its part well.
But with the conference being hosted in Indonesia next year and Micronesian island nation Palau in 2020, he believes the focus will fall more heavily on impacts in the Pacific and Australia's role.
"I think that from such a huge continent as Australia, one would feel that Australia's participation is more visible, it's more active, it's taken up with the higher political presence and so on," he told AAP in Brussels.
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"I think that in the coming Our Oceans conferences in the Pacific we will see Australia playing an even bigger and and even higher, important role."
The EU made commitments at this year's conference totalling $826 million.
The vital thing now was for all countries invited to attend to follow through on commitments made over the past four years.
Mr Vella said Our Oceans was not a "discussion" conference but a "commitment" conference and as the 2017 host, the EU would be closely monitoring those pledges to make sure they happened.
Australia's role as a leader in the Pacific on climate action is also expected to come under scrutiny at the United Nations climate conference in Bonn, Germany in November, with Fiji indicating it wants to use its presidency of the conference to speak up for island nations in the region.
* The writer is taking part in an EU-sponsored study tour.
