Carney Starts Process to Join European Union as ‘Associate Member’

Canada and the European Union laid out a detailed summary Friday of their plans to establish a closer partnership to counter the Trump administration’s policies.America and Canada are caught in a trade war as President Trump seeks to rebalance trade with the rest of the world and build more products domestically. Canada is one of only two countries that have strongly pushed back on Mr. Trump’s tariffs, which range up to 50 percent on some goods.Mr. Trump has also had an adversarial relationship with European governments, with the effect of pushing Canada and the European Union closer. The European Commission’s president, Ursula von der Leyen, on Friday said the world faces fierce geopolitical headwinds. “This change is permanent and now is the time to act with confidence and with vision to build a new future,” she said.Prime Minister Mark Carney called it a historic day after representatives of the two parties signed a digital trade agreement at Montreal. He announced an initiative called the Alliance for the Future to formally tie Canada into the 27-member European Union. While both Mr. Carney and Ms. von der Leyen used the term “associate member” to describe the relationship, the language did not appear in Friday’s joint statement.“Today, and the process that launches, is about opportunity,” Mr. Carney said after the signing. “Above all, it is about sovereignty.”Canada and the European Union are working to collaborate more closely on artificial intelligence while securing supply chains for energy and minerals under the agreement. “We are working toward the deepest possible partnership, short of accession, with Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member,” Mr. Carney said.The European Council’s president, António Costa, invited Mr. Carney to attend a council event in June 2027 to formalize an agreement on Canada’s role in the European Union. He called Canada “the most European of the non-European countries.”The bloc will have to work to create the associate member status since it does not currently exist, and some members — including Germany — have raised objections about the use of the term while welcoming closer ties with Canada. Rules stipulate that member countries need to be located in Europe.Ms. von der Leyen said earlier this week that the “vast majority” of member countries and European citizens want closer ties with Canada and that it would be an “association without accession,” meaning Canada would not be expected to go through the elaborate and demanding process required of prospective new EU members. “We can build a partnership that comes closer to membership than anything we’ve done before,” Ms. von der Leyen said.Many of the measures announced Friday are aimed at making both Europe and Canada less vulnerable to American economic pressure, especially in areas involving high tech, defense and finance.The two sides are finalizing an agreement for the European Investment Bank to provide capital for critical raw materials projects in Canada while the two sides work to open Europe’s super computer infrastructure to Canada, reducing their reliance on the AI giants of Silicon Valley.Canada and Europe also plan to work together on satellite systems for joint security, including giving Ottawa access to Galileo, the union’s satellite navigation system so it can move away from depending on American and Chinese GPS systems. A recent slowdown of Elon Musk’s Starlink system for Ukraine has lent impetus to the project.Canada also agreed to participate in a loan program for Ukraine. Mr. Carney said Canada would use frozen assets to provide 500 million Euros to the fund.When a reporter asked if Mr. Trump would be welcomed as a member of the Alliance for the Future, Mr. Carney smiled but didn’t answer.

Carney Starts Process to Join European Union as ‘Associate Member’

Carney Starts Process to Join European Union as ‘Associate Member’

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