MONTREAL: The EU and Canada want to bring their relationship to the \u201chighest level possible\u201d as they face a \u201cworld of growing rivalries,\u201d the 27-nation bloc\u2019s chief said on Thursday ahead of a meeting with Canadian leader Mark Carney.<\/p>\n
Brussels and Ottawa are to lay the groundwork for an ever-closer partnership at a two-day summit in Montreal, as they navigate uncertain ties with the United States and China.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe both want to bring our relationship to the highest level possible,\u201d von der Leyen said, doubling down on the prospect of Canada becoming the European Union\u2019s \u201cfirst associate member\u201d despite an intra-EU squabble over the term.<\/p>\n
\u201cOur idea is simple: it is an \u2018association without accession\u2019,\u201d she told an event organized by a research institute.<\/p>\n
Von der Leyen first suggested Canada could become an \u201cassociate member\u201d last month, but the title doesn\u2019t exist in EU treaties.<\/p>\n
Some member states led by Germany successfully pushed to drop the term from a joint summit statement, after prolonged wrangling which threatens to take the shine away from the Montreal talks.<\/p>\n
Canada and the EU have both been rattled by US President Donald Trump\u2019s second term. Trump\u2019s tariffs have hammered the Canadian economy, while the president\u2019s repeated annexation threats have caused outrage.<\/p>\n
Prime Minister Mark Carney has warned relations will not return to a pre-Trump normal and told Canadians that reducing dependence on the United States is an urgent priority.<\/p>\n
Ahead of the summit, he promised \u201ca new, ambitious alliance\u201d with the EU.<\/p>\n
The EU has equally faced US tariffs, and Trump and his top allies have piled criticism on European political leaders.<\/p>\n
China\u2019s growing economic heft has also unnerved Brussels, which has moved to protect its industry from what it views as unfair competition from rivals subsidized by Beijing and ease its dependencies on Chinese goods and raw materials.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn a world of growing rivalries, sovereignty and independence are no longer just the freedom to act alone. It is the capacity to act together,\u201d von der Leyen said.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhen trade becomes a tool of economic pressure, families pay the price, from the supermarket shelf to the cost of a new car. We are seeing in real time our sovereignty being attacked.\u201d<\/p>\n
Brussels and Ottawa could either \u201cgo it alone\u201d or \u201ctake a more strategic approach with trusted partners that face the same challenges,\u201d von der Leyen said.<\/p>\n
– What could be agreed? \u2014<\/p>\n
The EU and Canada already share a free-trade pact, but it has not been fully implemented, and Canadian officials have said businesses are pursuing new opportunities in Europe to offset US tariff-related losses.<\/p>\n
An EU official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the new Canadian partnership would align policies in areas such as climate, energy and artificial intelligence, allowing Ottawa to participate in some EU programs.<\/p>\n
Canada has huge stocks of the critical minerals needed for green technologies such as batteries and wind turbines that Europe sources mostly from China.<\/p>\n
But Canada needs massive infrastructure investment to jump-start its mining industry. The summit could lead to an agreement allowing the European Investment Bank to back Canadian critical mineral projects.<\/p>\n
A digital trade deal allowing faster and cheaper online transactions is expected to be unveiled in Montreal.<\/p>\n
Ottawa and Brussels are also understood to be working to have Canada participate in the EU\u2019s Erasmus youth program, which allows university students to spend a semester abroad, among other things.<\/p>\n
Carney said this week he wasn\u2019t concerned about associate-member status, or \u201cspecific names\u201d to characterize the new alliance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat matters is the difference that it will make to the lives of Canadians,\u201d Carney said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"MONTREAL: The EU and Canada want to bring their relationship to the \u201chighest level possible\u201d as they face…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":950920,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194292],"tags":[49,48,6816,2338],"class_list":["post-950919","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-montreal","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-european-union","tag-montreal"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950919","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=950919"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/950919\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/950920"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=950919"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=950919"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=950919"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}