Hindustan Times ·
Economy, business and finance
EU offers Canada 'associate membership': Why now & what a status that doesn't yet exist could mean
EU offers Canada 'associate membership': Why now & what a status that doesn't yet exist could mean
With US ties strained, EU has floated a new kind of partnership for Ottawa — one with no fixed rights, rules or precedent yet.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has proposed that Canada become the European Union's first “associate member”, a status never defined or used by the bloc before.
Von der Leyen made the offer on September 16, in her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney present. “I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada being the first associate member of the EU,” she told him, adding that the EU wanted to take the relationship “to the highest level possible”.
Carney, who has described the relationship Canada wants with the EU as a “unique alliance”, welcomed the proposal. In his speech to the European Parliament on Thursday, he said, “Europe and Canada are each strong. Europe and Canada are even stronger together.” He added, “We welcome this ambition.”
The bonhomie comes at a time when Canada is trying to reduce its economic and strategic dependence on the US under President Donald Trump. European governments, meanwhile, are reassessing their own reliance on Washington amid disputes over trade, defence spending and the future of US commitments to European security.
Canada-US relations have deteriorated sharply since Trump returned to office. Trump has imposed tariffs on Canadian goods, repeatedly spoken of Canada becoming the “51st state” (the US has 50) and clashed with Ottawa over trade and sovereignty.
The breakdown of Canada-US trade talks last month also pushed Carney's government to look for stronger economic relationships elsewhere, describing its goal as diversifying Canada's economic and strategic ties. Canada remains heavily dependent on the US: 72.5% of its merchandise exports went to the US in 2025, according to Global Affairs Canada. The share going to Europe and Central Asia was 12.4%.
For the EU, the concern extends beyond Canada's trade dispute with Washington. Von der Leyen told Parliament that Europe's partnerships were a strategic choice but also a response to what she called a “fracture in the international rules based system”.
Europe, she said, needed to “urgently reimagine our partnerships and build global coalitions for our resilience and democracies”.
European countries have been debating how far they can depend on the US for their security. Trump has repeatedly criticised its NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organization) allies over defence spending and argued that European members should take more responsibility for their own defence. In March 2025, he said the US would not defend allies he believed were not paying enough.
At the 2025 NATO summit in The Hague, members agreed to raise defence spending to 5% of GDP by 2035. Reuters reported at the time that European leaders remained worried about a possible US military drawdown in Europe and about Washington's longer-term commitment.
Those worries have persisted. In August 2026, a US review of its troop deployments in Europe raised questions among NATO allies about the continent's security. The review came as Trump pressed European countries to take on more of their own defence.
The uncertainty also comes as the war in Ukraine enters its fifth year since Russia's full-scale invasion. The US under Trump has pursued a different approach to the conflict, while European countries have sought to assume greater responsibility for Ukraine's security and their own defence, Reuters reported.
Von der Leyen's proposal is part of a broader European effort to build up the bloc's own strategic capabilities and its relationships with countries outside the EU. Canada, for its part, remains a NATO member and has traditionally depended heavily on the US for trade and continental security, and a closer relationship with the EU would not take it out of NATO or end its relationship with Washington.
Canada's economic dependence on the US remains substantial. The US accounted for 72.5% of Canada's merchandise exports in 2025, although that was down from 76.3% in 2024, according to Global Affairs Canada. The share going to Europe and Central Asia increased from 9.5% to 12.4% over the same period.