“We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world,” European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen said to Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney today. “And we will now build our shared future as well,” she added.
Her comments came during her state of the European Union speech in Strasbourg, France, which Carney attended and during which she proposed Canada become an “associate member” of the bloc. Below, our experts examine this unexpected proposal and the motivation behind it from the viewpoints of both Brussels and Ottawa.
Jörn Fleck is the senior director of the Atlantic Council’s Europe Center and a former European Parliament staffer.
Confusion over membership, but clarity on motivation
Von der Leyen’s pledge to develop ever-closer relations with Canada, including with an offer of associate membership in the EU, comes with more questions than answers. It is not unusual for these addresses to be high on rhetoric yet thin on details. But this pitch is stratospheric.
The European Union and Canada already maintain close relations. The EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) has been provisionally in force since 2016. Canada is the first non-European country to participate in the EU’s Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, funding scheme for defense projects.
Von der Leyen is pushing for more. She wants to upgrade relations to an “Alliance for the Future,” and she ticked off a wish list of partnership ideas: intelligent manufacturing, a tech alliance, integrated defense industrial bases, a flagship project in the Arctic, energy, critical minerals, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum, cyber, and economic security. But the pièce de résistance was the idea of associate EU membership for Canada.
Details stop here. Cue the confusion.
First, there is no such thing as associate membership in the EU treaties. German Chancellor Friedrich Merz pitched the idea for Ukraine to be an associate member this summer as a kind of waystation to eventually become a full-fledged member. This is probably not what von der Leyen has in mind for Canada.
Second, there’s the question of how associate membership interacts with other formats for non-EU countries to engage with the bloc. Norway, Iceland, and Liechtenstein are in the EU’s single market via the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and Ukraine all have their own arrangements. Reports suggest Canada could get access to the Erasumus+ student exchange program, EU-funded research grants, and a mutual recognition of workers’ qualifications. But these together hardly graduate to the ambition von der Leyen presented today.
Perhaps the EU will offer Canada some form of more advanced access to the bloc’s market. But the EU has been extremely hesitant to open parts of its cherished single market. This hesitancy is out of concern that countries should not be able to cherry-pick how integrated or not countries are with the EU. Just ask the post-Brexit Brits about their experience with that approach.
Third, there is the issue of Canada’s representation in the EU. If Ottawa more closely integrated into the European market, for instance, what say would Canada have in Brussels? Would Canada have voting rights? If not, would Canada then become a rule-taker on the many EU economic and trade rules and swap Washington’s patronizing treatment for the worst version of the Brussels effect? It seems doubtful that Canada would accept that, including its business community that is carefully watching EU rules on carbon border taxes and new steel tariffs. Never mind the opinions of some EU member states—ten of which have not even ratified the CETA yet and prevent its most promising investment provisions from entering force.
These questions aside, von der Leyen’s offer brings home just how much the Trump administration’s disengagement and disruption is reshaping geopolitics for US allies. That von der Leyen so strongly embraced Canada, which is in its own trade war with the United States, is a signal in its own right. It goes to show how much the “rupture” that Carney spoke of at Davos earlier this year is driving the psychology of leaders around the world as they try to navigate a new geopolitics for their countries.
Imran Bayoumi is a deputy director and resident fellow with the GeoStrategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security.
Is this the Carney Doctrine in action?
Von der Leyen’s announcement that the European Union has invited Canada to be its first “associate member” caps off a whirlwind week for Carney. He hosted global business investors at a conference in Toronto, and the United Kingdom is considering joining the Canada-led defense, security and resilience bank (DSRB), potentially adding a major partner to the fledgling effort.
It seems to be the week when the Carney Doctrine finally took off. The vision that Carney laid out at the World Economic Forum earlier this year, where he called for middle powers to band together and resist the coercive action of the world’s hegemons, had failed to get traction. The world’s middle powers are a disparate bunch and share little in terms of worldview or strategy to approach the “rupture” in the international order that Carney spoke of. Nonetheless, Canada’s associate membership with the EU is the closest that middle powers have come to truly banding together in a more volatile world.
Still, questions remain. What exactly “associate membership” entails is unclear as no other country in the world holds that title. There are existing sore points in the relationship between Ottawa and Brussels, as well. As Jörn also notes above, ten EU member states have yet to ratify the EU-Canada trade deal from 2016.
Ultimately, for Canada, the decision to pursue closer ties with the EU is a smart one. The ongoing trade war with the United States has pushed bilateral relations to a low point and Canadians want their leaders to diversify away from Washington, with Europe as a desired partner. However, Canada’s new partnership with the EU makes a near-term resolution between Ottawa and Washington in their trade war more unlikely. Carney continues to build leverage and political will by holding out, and he is demonstrating to Canadians that alternatives exist.
