{"id":603058,"date":"2026-09-17T09:08:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-17T09:08:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603058\/"},"modified":"2026-09-17T09:08:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-17T09:08:12","slug":"new-zealand-touted-as-possible-future-associate-member-of-the-eu","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/603058\/","title":{"rendered":"New Zealand touted as possible future ‘associate member’ of the EU"},"content":{"rendered":"

New Zealand is being talked about as a possible \u201cassociate member\u201d of the European Union after the door was opened to Canada.<\/p>\n

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen today said Canada could be given the status<\/a> in the wake of its ongoing trade war with Donald Trump\u2019s US. Trump has imposed wide ranging tariffs on its northern neighbour but Canada\u2019s Prime Minister Mark Carney has stood firm.<\/p>\n

The \u201cassociate member\u201d offer seems to have come as a surprise to many in Europe. But one official said it could be expanded to other countries which have trade deals with European bloc, including New Zealand.<\/p>\n

Politico Europe reported: \u201cCanada would be the first, but potentially not the only, country in the club: Australia, New Zealand, Singapore and Japan have all been mentioned as possible future members, the official added.\u201d<\/p>\n

New Zealand signed a trade deal with the EU<\/a> worth an estimated $1.8 billion in 2023.<\/p>\n

\"Prime<\/p>\n

Prime Minister Christopher Luxon met the EU’s Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels last year. (Source: Getty)<\/p>\n

European Commission President von der Leyen said today: “This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength. In short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.”<\/p>\n

Canada would be the first associate member, if it happens. The EU is the world\u2019s third biggest economy, after the US and China. It has 27 member states as well as countries like Norway which are not members but are in the linked European Economic Area.<\/p>\n

The Politico report suggested associate membership would not at first give rights to live in the EU. Instead, it could create \u201ca new category of partners for enhanced free trade and cooperation on areas including defense, AI and high-tech science\u201d according to diplomats.<\/p>\n

Canada welcomed the offer but didn\u2019t commit to it. Germany, one of the main players in the EU, said: \u201cI think we should give that some more thought,\u201d Politico reported.<\/p>\n

The morning’s headlines in 90 seconds, including how hard it might be to shake up our supermarkets, and speculation mounts over the new James Bond. (Source: 1News)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"New Zealand is being talked about as a possible \u201cassociate member\u201d of the European Union after the door…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603059,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[219,42,43,40,38,41,39,1745],"class_list":["post-603058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-economy","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories","tag-uk-europe"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=603058"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603058\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603059"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}