Canada is considering associate EU membership

As the Wall Street Journal reports, citing representatives of the EU and Canada, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney is examining the possibility of "associated EU membership." Accordingly, the EU should be open to this.

There was initially no statement from the Canadian embassy in Brussels or the EU Commission. The EU already has association agreements for closer political and economic cooperation without membership with some countries such as Ukraine, Georgia and Israel.

The background to Canada's strategic change of course is the escalating trade dispute with the USA. As a result, the USA imposed tariffs on Canadian goods worth several billion dollars, to which Canada responded with corresponding counter tariffs. Canada's relations with Washington have deteriorated significantly since US President Donald Trump returned to the White House at the beginning of 2025, but also due to differences in other areas.

Since then, there has been discussion about rapprochement with the EU. In an interview with SPIEGEL at the beginning of the month, former Foreign Minister Sigmar Gabriel spoke out in favor of a rapprochement: "I am one of those who have been suggesting Canada's admission to the European Union for a long time. Canada is more European than many European member states, a strong and reliable ally in NATO and is very close to us culturally and politically.«

According to the Wall Street Journal, Canada and the EU are discussing ways to enable the free movement of goods, services and workers in areas such as energy, artificial intelligence (AI), defense and critical raw materials. There are also discussions about laying submarine cables, jointly building data centers, cloud storage and satellite networks, and building infrastructure for Canadian energy supplies to the EU.

Carney also regularly spoke with several EU heads of government about the possibility of allowing Canadians to live and work in the EU without a visa, the paper reported, citing two people familiar with the matter. The exchange with French President Emmanuel Macron was particularly intensive. Carney and Macron are due to meet at the end of the month. Macron's office did not initially comment.

However, the plan for a closer partnership is considered difficult. This is shown by the resistance to an existing, less far-reaching trade agreement between the EU and Canada: more than ten years after its conclusion and nine years after its provisional entry into force, several EU member states have still not ratified the treaty.