Canada-EU summit opens with associate membership proposal in doubt

(CN) — The European Union and Canada opened talks in Montreal on Thursday to deepen ties across a range of sectors and reduce their reliance on the United States amid strained relations.But the two-day summit got off to a rocky start after the EU’s largest member states — Germany, France and Italy — rebuffed a proposal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to make Canada the EU’s first “associate member.”During a state of the union speech in September, von der Leyen said she wanted to work with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to make Canada an associate member.Carney, sitting in the front row of the European Parliament as a guest, smiled warmly when she made her announcement and got up to embrace the EU chief.But von der Leyen’s offer caught European leaders by surprise. She reportedly had not consulted with individual countries and had not received approval to offer Canada such a status, which does not exist in EU law.On the eve of the summit in Montreal, von der Leyen’s proposal faced opposition, with diplomats telling reporters it had not been properly thought through and raised numerous problems.By Wednesday, the backlash had forced the European Commission to accept a joint statement that backed away from offering Canada a path toward associate membership, The Guardian reported, citing anonymous diplomats. At the summit, the EU will instead call for “an ever closer association of Canada” with the bloc, according to reports.Von der Leyen, a former German defense minister who has led the European Commission since December 2019, has drawn criticism from European leaders on several occasions for making announcements and taking decisions without consulting national governments.Still, von der Leyen did not back down.On Thursday, after she arrived in Montreal, she again called for Canada to become an associate member.“Rarely have I looked forward to a summit this much,” she said on social media. “An ocean separates Europe and Canada. Yet we have never felt closer. We have a new ambition: bringing Canada closer to us than ever before, as associate member of the EU.”Amy Verdun, a political scientist and expert on EU-Canada relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands, said the two sides would seek to define the nature of the Canada-EU partnership at the Montreal summit.“The two sides aim to finalize the agreement next year,” she said in an email.Associate membership remained a possibility, but Verdun said granting Ottawa such a status would be difficult because it would need the approval of all 27 EU member states.“Especially the Germans have given a strong opposition signal,” she said.Canada, too, would not want to sign up to a deal that would be “the equivalent of full membership” in the EU, she said.EU member states contribute to the bloc’s budget and are subject to its laws, regulations, fiscal rules and trade agreements.In 2016, the EU and Canada entered into a wide-ranging trade agreement, and trade has increased substantially since then.Since 2017, trade in goods has grown by more than 75%, reaching $134 billion in 2025, according to Canadian government figures. Trade in services has nearly doubled over the same period.Julian Karaguesian, an expert on international trade and macroeconomics at McGill University in Montreal, said both the EU and Canada have a lot to gain by deepening ties.“There are trade opportunities and investment opportunities that are very real,” he said, speaking by telephone.For example, he said Canada and Europe could join forces to bolster their tech industries and move away from relying on U.S. servers to store their vast volumes of private data.“There’s room for digital cooperation,” he said. “There’s room for independent servers, independent data centers, and so forth.”Likewise, Europe and Canada could team up to develop their own artificial intelligence systems.“There’s potential if officials on both sides, and the establishments on both sides, are willing to put their money where their mouth is,” he said. “If they were willing to do that, Europe and Canada could emerge as a bigger player in AI.”European and Canadian capital and stock markets could also benefit from integration, he said.“Europe could be an outlet for Canadian institutional investors, teachers’ and pension funds, etc., to diversify away from excessive portfolio concentration in U.S. dollar assets, in the Nasdaq,” he said.Karaguesian said the Montreal summit was a key moment in Carney’s vision to build cooperation between so-called “middle powers.”In January, Carney made a speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, where he said middle powers like Canada and Europe needed to work together to increase their bargaining power against aggressive superpowers engaged in zero-sum strategies.Karaguesian said it was in the interest of Europe and Canada to shore up the global order.“We need an alliance of countries that believe in free trade and free investment and the movement of people in an orderly way, a rules-based international order where you don’t just invade countries and kidnap leaders,” he said.“The people running the United States are running amok,” he said. “They are deluded to think that with only 4% of the world’s population they’re still the single and only hegemon. The way they’re behaving is abhorrent.”“Prime Minister Carney is trying to capture the imagination of Canadians by saying: ‘Look, we’ve become excessively reliant on a single country. Whether the country self-corrects or not, it doesn’t matter. We need to reduce our dependence. This is our problem, not the U.S. problem,” he said.Courthouse News reporter Cain Burdeau is based in the European Union.Subscribe to our free newslettersOur weekly newsletter Closing Arguments offers the latest about ongoing trials, major litigation and rulings in courthouses around the U.S. and the world, while the monthly Under the Lights dishes the legal dirt from Hollywood, sports, Big Tech and the arts.Additional Reads