STRASBOURG, September 17 — Mark Carney stood in the front row of the European Parliament chamber and let the room come to him. The Canadian prime minister had just finished making the case for his country becoming the European Union’s first associate member, and by the time he sat down, lawmakers were on their feet. The scene in Strasbourg was warm in a way that parliamentary sessions rarely are.
Carney nodded, rose, and embraced European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen as the standing ovation rolled through the chamber. The proposal he was endorsing had been hers, made only a day earlier: that Canada become the EU’s first associate member — a status that does not currently exist in the bloc’s treaties and would have to be created from scratch.
A status that does not yet exist
Von der Leyen said Europe wants to take its relationship with Canada to “the highest level possible.” She called for the two sides to move beyond their existing free trade agreement toward what she described as an “Alliance for the Future,” encompassing a “common prosperity and economic security space.” Carney welcomed the proposal while acknowledging the obvious: “associate membership” remains to be defined. He told the parliament he was not pursuing full membership of the EU.
What he outlined instead was deeper integration across trade, defense, critical minerals, artificial intelligence, energy, space, research and financial services — a list designed to make both sides less vulnerable to economic and geopolitical pressure. He later repeated the point to reporters.
“We do not seek power to dominate others,” Carney said. “On the contrary, we are pursuing resilience so that no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms, our democracies, our rule of law.”
The American shadow over the chamber
The relationship with the United States hung over the address. It has defined Canada’s economy for decades and has increasingly soured. Trump’s tariffs, demands for economic concessions, and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Ottawa to reduce its dependence on its neighbor and seek a far deeper economic, security and political relationship with Europe.
Canada sends roughly 70% of its exports to the United States, making it highly exposed to Trump’s tariffs. Ottawa has retaliated and rejected demands that Carney says threaten Canadian sovereignty.
Europe took a different path, shelving retaliation and accepting tariffs of up to 15% on most EU exports to the U.S. Trump suggested the proposed EU arrangement could be a “hostile act” and threatened heavy tariffs on Europe if he judged its intentions to be unfriendly, raising the stakes ahead of Carney’s speech. Asked about Trump’s comments, Carney said Canadians were united in rejecting outside attempts to dictate the country’s choices. “Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language we speak.
No one is going to dictate our culture or with whom we can strike agreements internationally,” Carney said. Carney has repeatedly urged what he calls middle powers to resist economic coercion.
At the World Economic Forum in Davos in January, he warned that when countries negotiate alone with a dominant power, “we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered.” Trump rebuked him the next day. Jonathan Wilkinson, Canada’s ambassador-designate to the EU, said Ottawa wants to get as close as possible to the bloc.
Carney will host EU leaders for a summit in Montreal on Oct. 29-30, when the two sides are expected to discuss the proposed new relationship in more detail.
