Brussels. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney wants to make Europe the starting point for a new alliance of liberal middle powers. To this end, he wants to deepen his country's economic, political and military relations with the EU. The first announcements in this direction are expected this week.
On Wednesday, Carney will attend Ursula von der Leyen's annual State of the European Union address in Strasbourg. A day later he will speak to the European Parliament himself. Handelsblatt explains what it's all about.
Carney had already announced the change of course after the failure of trade talks with the USA in August. “This fall we will begin talks with the European Union, the world’s second-largest economy, to build a significantly stronger and deeper security and economic partnership,” the prime minister said in late August.
“We want to create a new ‘Cross-Atlantic’ partnership that goes beyond the trade agreement,” said Bernd Lange, Chairman of the Trade Committee in the European Parliament, to Handelsblatt. The planned agreement ranges from freedom of movement to raw materials and digital to defense. “The model should also be open to countries like Brazil and Japan and become the core of the alliance of the middle powers,” said Lange.
According to EU officials, this is not about Canada joining the EU. Rather, additional trade facilitation and Canada's participation in European programs should be decided in areas such as the free movement of people, critical raw materials and energy, the defense industry, financial markets and AI.
The EU and Canada are examining a regulation that would allow their citizens to live and work on both sides of the Atlantic without a visa, as EU diplomats confirmed to Handelsblatt. However, all EU member states would have to agree to such a regulation. Canada's participation in the European Erasmus study funding program is also being considered, the diplomats told Handelsblatt.
Ottawa is also negotiating with the EU on an agreement for digital trade and participation in European supercomputers for the expansion of artificial intelligence (AI). Canada is also considering participating in the EU's 90 billion euro aid loan for Ukraine. Trade facilitation could also be decided for energy supplies and green technologies such as electric cars and heat pumps.
As Handelsblatt exclusively reported, Ottawa also wants to open its “Buy Canadian” rules to European producers. In return, Canadian manufacturers should have access to the European market under the new European “Made in EU” requirements. European and Canadian companies would be treated equally in government-sponsored or preferential procurement.
"I personally believe strongly that the international order will be rebuilt. And it will be rebuilt from Europe," Carney said at a summit in May.
However, the Canadian economy still depends heavily on the American market. Carney is therefore not just trying to open up new sales markets. He wants to create a network of like-minded states that favor each other when it comes to trade, raw materials, technology and security and thereby become less susceptible to blackmail by the major economic powers.
But Carney's hope for Europe collides with a paradox: at the very moment when other middle powers are praising the EU as the anchor of a new international order, Europe itself is politically weakened. On key issues from trade to defense to industrial policy, the member states are struggling to find a common course, national interests are slowing down European decisions. The two most important EU member states, France and Germany, are not making progress on joint projects, and their bosses Emmanuel Macron and Friedrich Merz are weakened internally.
From the outside, the pressure of expectations is growing on a Union that is struggling internally to translate its economic size into clout. The best example of this is the different ways Carney and von der Leyen's EU deal with Trump:
Although Canada is much more economically dependent on the USA, Carney did not shy away from confrontation with its big neighbor. The former central banker responded to the US tariffs with high counter-tariffs. Trump's demands are unacceptable for Canada, said Carney. If you are attacked, you have to defend yourself.
For Mark Camilleri, Carney's actions come as no surprise at all. The Canadian lawyer heads the Canada-EU Trade and Investment Association in Brussels: The organization helps companies coordinate transatlantic economic cooperation, especially around the free trade agreement between the EU states and Canada, Ceta.
Camilleri has been closely following relations between the European bloc and his home country for years. Carney's speech in Brussels was a continuation of the course he took at the World Economic Forum in Davos: strengthening the middle powers.
However, Camilleri does not expect any concrete negotiation results this week. "I don't see this summit as the end point. I don't expect a major agreement, an association agreement - there is simply not enough time for that." The expert on European-Canadian relations is instead focusing on the summit meeting in Montreal at the end of October. "I think there will be a lot of expressions of shared values in Strasbourg; I expect a lot of insights. The real results will only come at the October summit."
Camilleri admits that the closer engagement is not entirely without reason. Trump, his trade war and his attacks on Canadian identity and sovereignty encourage Canadians to nurture their relationships with like-minded people. “This is not the end of the relationship with the USA,” says Camilleri pragmatically: “It’s about balancing the portfolio of our customers and suppliers so that we remain a sovereign and healthy country.” The expert is particularly interested in synergies in the area of AI. "Canada will not catch up in AI and digital technologies alone. Europe offers Canada a partnership that also provides scale," says Camilleri: "Europe is one of the few places in the world that can do that."
Both sides have now appointed staff to negotiate the enhanced partnership, while the EU Parliament this week announced the opening of an office in Ottawa. Carney appointed John Hannaford as the Prime Minister's personal representative for relations with the EU in October 2025. Hannaford was previously “Clerk of the Privy Council”, Canada’s top government official, and ambassador to Norway; he succeeded Stéphane Dion, who is now Canada's ambassador to France. On the EU side, Commission veteran Joost Korte takes on the role of the European Commission's special envoy for the Canada Partnership.
According to Camilleri, the two top officials are coordinating the implementation of the decisions from the EU-Canada summit in June 2025 - including the Safe security agreement, in which Canada is the first non-EU country to be allowed to participate - ahead of Great Britain, with which corresponding negotiations failed. Both sides concluded negotiations on Canadian participation in the EU's 150 billion euro defense fund at the end of November 2025; The EU Council decision followed in June 2026. The aim here is to close gaps in European defense capabilities more quickly and to strengthen the industrial base of the European defense industry instead of continuing to rely on individual national procurement.
For Canada, participation means in concrete terms: Canadian companies and products manufactured in Canada will in future be allowed to participate in Safe-financed tenders from EU states - previously a privilege that was exclusively reserved for EU member states. This opens up a market for the Canadian defense industry that was previously closed to it; For the EU, it secures additional suppliers and capacities at a time when its own industry is reaching its limits.
