Melike Pala<\/p>\n
17 September 2026\u2022Update: 17 September 2026<\/p>\n
European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said Thursday that countries Australia and New Zealand could follow Canada in pursuing a proposed “associate membership” with the European Union.<\/p>\n
Speaking to Euronews ahead of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney’s address to the European Parliament, Metsola said the proposed status could offer a framework between full EU membership and candidate status.<\/p>\n
“There are countries with which we want to deepen our relationship,” said Metsola, adding that the initiative could encourage other countries to seek closer cooperation with the EU.<\/p>\n
“I don’t doubt that it will include other countries, and others will come knocking at our door,\u201d she said. \u201cIn such times of uncertainty, having friends matters.”<\/p>\n
Metsola said discussions on the technical details of associate membership remain at an early stage, but could include deeper trade ties, access to critical raw materials and greater regulatory cooperation.<\/p>\n
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed “associate membership” for Canada in her annual State of the Union address on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
The proposal comes as Ottawa seeks to diversify its international partnerships amid heightened trade tensions with the US, Canada’s largest trading partner.<\/p>\n
US President Donald Trump said Washington could consider imposing additional tariffs on the EU if Canada’s potential closer relationship with the bloc becomes “hostile.”<\/p>\n
Metsola rejected the suggestion that the EU’s proposed cooperation with Canada was directed at the US.<\/p>\n
She said the EU approaches its relationships with Canada and the US separately, and described the bloc as an advocate of rules-based international cooperation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Melike Pala 17 September 2026\u2022Update: 17 September 2026 European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said Thursday that countries Australia…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":603433,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[111,43,139,69,201078],"class_list":["post-603432","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-new-zealand","tag-new-zealand","tag-news","tag-newzealand","tag-nz","tag-sitekeywords"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603432","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=603432"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/603432\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/603433"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=603432"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=603432"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/nz\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=603432"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}