When Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the European Parliament on 17 September, what mattered was not simply the warmth of his reception. Europe has never lacked warm words for Canada. What mattered was the precision and ambition of the Canadian proposition.
Ottawa is no longer speaking only about friendship, shared values or closer cooperation in the abstract. It is speaking about instruments, programmes and markets. Europe should answer at the same level, including institutions.
For years, we European Democrats have argued that the Union’s problem is rarely a shortage of like-minded partners; it is the absence of sufficiently ambitious structures through which those partners can act together with us. Europe itself was built on the conviction that institutions, common rules and shared interests endure beyond political cycles.
Canada is uniquely placed to enter into such a relationship with us. We share democratic values, the rule of law, a commitment to multilateralism, comparable regulatory cultures and many of the same strategic challenges. What Europe should now offer Canada is therefore not another declaration of friendship, but a special Association Agreement of unprecedented political, economic and security ambition.
This should rest on three pillars.
The first is political association.
A new EU–Canada Association Agreement should establish a structured political relationship going considerably beyond traditional cooperation agreements. At its heart should be a standing invitation for the Prime Minister of Canada to participate in relevant meetings of the European Council, and for Canadian ministers to participate regularly in relevant configurations of the Council of the European Union — particularly on foreign affairs, defence, trade, energy, competitiveness and other areas of common strategic interest.
This would not give Canada a vote in EU decision-making, nor alter the institutional prerogatives established by the Treaties. European decisions would remain European decisions.
But Canada would be present when our common strategic interests are discussed, rather than merely informed afterwards. That distinction matters. Anyone familiar with European decision-making knows that being present when positions are formed is fundamentally different from being briefed once they have been settled.
Our objective should therefore be straightforward: where European and Canadian strategic interests converge, Canada should have a standing place at the political table.
The second pillar is economic, technological and societal integration.
Europe should begin by completing what it has already started. CETA has been provisionally applied for almost a decade, yet it has still not been ratified by every Member State. If we describe Canada as one of our closest and most reliable partners, Europe must finally bring its own flagship economic agreement with Canada to completion.
But CETA should now become the foundation rather than the destination.
Our longer-term objective should be a Euro-Canadian economic area, progressively removing the remaining barriers to trade in goods and services, investment, public procurement, capital and the mobility of qualified professionals. We should work towards deeper mutual recognition of standards, certifications and professional qualifications and much closer integration of strategic supply chains, particularly in energy, critical raw materials, clean technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, semiconductors and aerospace.
The same ambition should apply to European programmes.
Canada is already associated with Pillar II of Horizon Europe. We should build on that precedent and establish the broadest possible Canadian participation in the Union programmes where our interests converge.
That should include, where legally possible and mutually beneficial, Horizon Europe and its successor, Digital Europe, Erasmus+, EU4Health, Copernicus and European space programmes, research and innovation instruments, connectivity and infrastructure programmes, cybersecurity initiatives and the future instruments supporting European competitiveness and strategic technologies.
Researchers, students, universities, innovative companies and start-ups on both sides of the Atlantic should increasingly operate within a common European-Canadian ecosystem.
This is ultimately what association should mean: not merely easier trade between two markets, but progressively creating a shared economic, technological, scientific and human space.
The third pillar is security and defence.
Here, political reality is already moving faster than our institutional vocabulary.
Canada is the first non-European country to participate in SAFE, the European Union’s Security Action for Europe instrument. This is not a symbolic development. It gives Canadian companies and Canadian products access, under agreed conditions, to procurement supported by an instrument designed to mobilise up to €150 billion for joint defence investment.
Europe should recognise the strategic significance of that decision.
SAFE should become the foundation of a much deeper Euro-Canadian defence-industrial partnership. We should use it to develop joint procurement, integrate defence supply chains, increase production capacity, strengthen interoperability and jointly develop the capabilities Europe and Canada need for their security.
Canada already participates in permanent structured cooperation. (PESCO) projects, including Military Mobility, and the EU–Canada Security and Defence Partnership provides a broader framework for cooperation.
We should now connect these different strands into a coherent security architecture encompassing defence industry, military mobility, cyber and hybrid threats, maritime and Arctic security, space, critical infrastructure and resilience.
And we should go further.
The European Democratic Party has long advocated the creation of a European Security Council capable of bringing together those democracies that are both willing and able to assume greater responsibility for the security of our continent.
Canada should be a founding member of that Council.And the European Security Council should become the è enlarged European pillar of NATO.
Geography should not obscure strategic reality. Canada is an Atlantic, Arctic and European security power. It contributes directly to the defence of Europe through NATO, shares our security interests and increasingly shares our defence-industrial architecture. A European Security Council that excluded Canada would ignore that reality.
None of this would weaken NATO. On the contrary, it would strengthen its European pillar.
For years, successive American administrations have called on Europeans to assume greater responsibility for their own security. A Europe capable of producing more, procuring together, moving forces rapidly and acting strategically — with Canada fully engaged in that effort — would make the Atlantic Alliance stronger and more balanced.
There is, of course, a legitimate institutional concern. The Union already struggles at times to make decisions rapidly. Bringing partners closer to our deliberations must not create new vetoes or further complicate European decision-making.
That is precisely why our proposal distinguishes association from membership.
Canada would participate politically without acquiring a vote in EU institutions. It would join programmes according to clearly negotiated conditions. It would participate in our security architecture where interests and responsibilities are genuinely shared. The Union would retain its decision-making autonomy while gaining the strategic depth of much closer cooperation with one of its most trusted democratic partners.
The EU–Canada Summit in Montréal at the end of October should therefore not produce another declaration of goodwill. It should launch negotiations on a special EU–Canada Association Agreement encompassing political association, economic integration, participation in European programmes and a common security architecture.
It should also set out an immediate roadmap: complete CETA ratification; consolidate and expand Canada’s participation in SAFE; identify the EU programmes that Canada can progressively join; establish structured Canadian participation in relevant European political meetings; and invite Canada to become a founding member of a future European Security Council.
This is more ambitious than a traditional partnership. It should be.
The geopolitical order around us is changing rapidly. Democracies that share our principles, our interests and increasingly our risks cannot afford to remain institutionally distant simply because our existing categories were designed for another era.
Europe and Canada have spent decades describing one another as like-minded partners. The time has come to give those words institutional meaning.
Canada’s place is at our table. Let us build the table accordingly.
Sandro Gozi is Secretary General of the European Democratic Party and a Member of the European Parliament.
