European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday proposed opening a path for Canada to become the European Union’s first associate member, a striking overture as US President Donald Trump’s tariffs drive Ottawa closer to Europe.
“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada being the first associate member of the EU,” von der Leyen told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney during her annual State of the European Union address.
Carney received a standing ovation from European lawmakers. He is due to address the European Parliament on Thursday.
Trump’s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Canada to seek closer economic and security ties with Europe.
Roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States, and Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU as Canada seeks to reduce that dependence.
Von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would build on their existing free trade agreement, known as CETA, with a broader “Alliance for the Future” aimed at creating “a common prosperity and economic security space.”
She cast that closer relationship as rooted not just in trade but in shared democratic values.
“Above all, dear Mark, Europe and Canada believe in democracy,” von der Leyen said to Carney, who sat in the front row to her left.
“We believe that power does not belong to the strongest, the richest or the loudest, but to all of us. That democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work.”
Von der Leyen said the expanded partnership would cover advanced manufacturing, technology, defense production, the Arctic, energy, critical minerals, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity and economic security.
“This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said. “In short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.”
Canada this year became the first non-European country to join the EU’s $173-billion SAFE defense program, giving Canadian companies access to joint procurement.
Carney said Tuesday that economic integration, once viewed largely as an asset, is increasingly “being used as a weapon by certain countries.”
Canada has retaliated against US tariffs and rejected trade terms Carney says would weaken its sovereignty.
The EU has taken a different course with Washington, reaching a trade agreement that set a 15% US tariff ceiling on the vast majority of EU exports while Europe eliminated tariffs on US industrial goods.
That contrast has loomed over Carney’s push for closer European ties.
In a closely watched speech at the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he urged middle powers to work together to increase their leverage in an era of great-power rivalry.
“When we only negotiate bilaterally with a hegemon, we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered,” Carney said.
“This is not sovereignty,” he said. “It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
Carney’s Davos speech on middle powers in January drew a personal rebuke from Trump, and von der Leyen’s overture to America’s neighbor could raise the temperature again.
In an emailed statement Wednesday, Iratxe García Pérez, president of the Socialists & Democrats group in the European Parliament, praised Carney for “great courage confronting Donald Trump” and said allies were needed to defend “sovereignty, solidarity and international law.”
