EU Commission President von der Leyen offered Canada “associated membership” in the EU, Prime Minister Carney responded openly but cautiously. The background is customs conflicts with the USA and the desire for more independence from China and the USA. Trump responded with tariff threats. – A comment by Enrico Telle.

On Wednesday, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen (CDU) gave Canada a speech in her State of the Union speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg“associated membership”offered in the EU, in front of Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.

Canadian Prime Minister MarkCarneywas fundamentally open to the proposal to offer Canada status as an associated member of the European Union. He said Canada welcomed the "ambition" of the proposal and told the European Parliament: "Europe and Canada are stronger together." At the same time, Carney did not explicitly use the term “associate member,” but rather spoke of an “alliance for the future.” He emphasized that what is crucial for Canada is the specific design of possible cooperation and less the designation of the new status. What such a partnership could ultimately look like is currently still unclear.

It is currently only possible to say roughly what “associated membership” is, as the EU treaties do not provide for such a status. In May, Chancellor Friedrich defeated Merzbefore, Ukraineto become an “associated member” of the EU. The country should receive observer status in the EU bodies, gradual access to certain programs and mutual assistance in the event of a future attack, argued Merz. According to Euronews, Ukraine would be represented in the European Council, Commission and Parliament, but without voting rights.

The day after von der Leyen's proposal, Canadian Prime Minister spokeMark Carneyeven before the EU Parliament. Independence from the USA and China is important: “If you’re not at the table, you’re on the menu.” However, they do not want to build a third superpower bloc.

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The background to the move is conflicts between the USA and Canada. Unsurprisingly, US President Donald Trump is not enthusiastic about the proposal for an “associated membership” for Canada. Shortly after von der Leyen's move, he threatened high tariffs if the EU "bad intentions" (German: bad intentions). The USA had previously imposed tariffs on Canadian imports, among other things because of the milk trade between the EU and Canada as part of the CETA free trade agreement. Canada responded with similarly high tariffs.

Canada's self-confident demeanor in the customs dispute may look like independence, but in fact the USA and Canada are among its closest trading partners. 71.7 percent of Canadian goods exports go to the USA. However, this dependence is decreasing: in 2024 it was still 75.9 percent.

For the EU, the deal with Canada is primarily about importing fewer products and raw materials from China. The EU is currently importing significantly more goods from China than the other way around - and the EU doesn't seem to like that. After all, China has caught up enormously both militarily and economically in recent years and is pushing to overtake the USA as a world power.

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Apparently the EU and Canada are neither supporters of the USA nor China: At the beginning of the year, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and Chancellor Merz declared at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the “middle powers” ​​had to maintain their position in the world and find their own “path of strength” in order to be able to compete with superpowers like the USA and China.

Could Canada's LNG and oil solve Europe's energy problem?

The Trump administration mostly justifies its tariffs with trade deficits, and in order to compensate for them, other countries should buy more from the USA. In the Turnberry Agreement, the EU agreed to buy US energy worth $750 billion by 2028, including crude oil and liquefied natural gas (LNG). The Turnberry Agreement is a deal between the USA and the EU that was concluded in July 2025 and is proving to be rather disadvantageous for the EU.

The EU has also promised to make AI chips, defense equipment and investments in the USA. LoudGlobal Trade AlertEnergy purchases are currently at around 41 percent of the pace that would be necessary for the goal. Critics thought the sum was already worth it at the endunrealistic. The EU Commission can negotiate, but energy companies cannotcertain purchasesforce.

Energy has been an ongoing problem for the EU since the Russian attack on Ukraine. She wants Russian gas and oilget away, it needs alternatives, and the Iran war is making the situation worse.Canadian LNGBut it's not an easy solution: it comes from the Canadian west coast, and the transport to Germany is long and expensive. US LNG from the East Coast is significantly more attractive.

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Those tooLNG plant Ksi Lisims, where the gas is supposed to come from, has a catch. The German companies SEFE and Uniper have concluded 20-year contracts for a total of around three million tons per year. However, a final investment decision is still pending and a groundbreaking ceremony has not yet taken place. For comparison: “LNG Canada Phase 1” took 14 years from the project announcement to the first load. The Texas company is also behind Ksi LisimsWestern LNG, which is financed by the US funds Blackstone and Apollo. The contracts correspond to a market value of around 4 billion US dollars; annual gas consumption in Germany alone is around 80 billion.

The LNG example shows that the rapprochement between Canada and the EU is new, but the structure in the West and the dependence on the USA are unlikely to change overnight. Canadian energy can still help, including crude oil from the province's oil sandsAlberta. Although most of it is refined in the USA, deliveries can be made via so-called “swap” transactionsto exchange: Oil or gas destined for Europe exchanges goods that are destined for Asia. In this way, Canada's energy sector, which almost exclusively supplies the USA and Asia, can tap into the European market.

SAFE: Armament as a joint project

Even before the statements by Prime Minister Mark Carney and Commission President von der Leyen, Canada had concluded another deal with the EU: joining the European arms program SAFE. Canada is the only non-European country to have access to this financing instrument in this form. Among other things, it is intended to stabilize supply chains and promote the development of its own technologies in order to reduce dependence on the USA. The agreement was signed in mid-February and gives Canadian companies a share of a market that would otherwise be reserved for European companies.

There is a new one for the US defense industry, which only has a limited role in SAFE contractsAgreementThis gap partially fills this gap between Germany and the USA. It expands joint production of Patriot interceptor missiles. Besides, Germany wantsTomahawk cruise missileand buy Typhon launch systems, for which, according to media reports, almost 3.4 billion euros have been earmarked. It is being examined which Tomahawk parts German companies could supply, a possible gain for the German arms industry. The German companies had a license to manufacture Patriot interceptor missiles, an anti-aircraft systemMBDAandRheinmetallalready secured.

Canada itself also buys military equipment from the USA, especially aircraft, and also supplies engines. The supply chains are therefore intertwined in several directions.

Canada has also announced that it will also join the British-led military coalitionJoint Expeditionary Force(JEF) applied.

Canada's raw materials are interesting for the EU, but there is a lack of further processing options

One area where the EU would like to buy from Canada, according to von der Leyen and Carney, is critical raw materials. These include lithium, graphite and rare earths, which are indispensable for many high-tech products such as chips, batteries or weapon systems.

Canadapromotestoday mainly potash, uranium, nickel, cobalt, niobium and platinum metals and produces aluminum. Most of the CanadianKalis, which is primarily used as fertilizer, goes to the USA, even if the EUtheir sharehas recently increased significantly. At theuraniumCanada is already one of the most important suppliers to the EU, which also wants to become more independent of Russia.

The situation is different for graphite, lithium and rare earths: Canadian production and, above all, further processingnot yet mature. There are projects, but hardly any refineries on an industrial scale. Graphite production, for example, lacks the refinement into anode material that is needed for batteries. The battery project byNorthvolthas failed in Europe as well as in Canada. A deal would therefore also have to include the joint construction of refineries. Production that could break Chinese market dominance is still years away.

There is also the question of indigenous rights: many deposits are in areas where indigenous people must be consulted under Canadian law. Some communities reject major projects and can delay or prevent them for years, others are partners themselves.

Canada and Germany are moving together on AI, but remain dependent on the USA for chips

The EU and Canada also have a lot of catching up to do with the USA when it comes to artificial intelligence. While OpenAI boss Sam Altman is currently campaigning to slow down the development of particularly powerful AI for security reasons, Canada and Germany are moving closer together: around von der Leyen's announcement, the Canadian company Cohere signed the agreement to take over the German company Aleph Alpha. The merger still needs the approval of the authorities.

At the Canadian AI ConferenceALL INGermany was the guest of honor in Montreal. Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger and Canada's AI Minister Evan Solomon announced there that they would jointly support AI researcher Yoshua Bengio's organization LawZero: Canada wants to give 150 million Canadian dollars and Germany 100 million euros. In addition, the institutes Mila (Canada) and DFKI (Germany) agreed on a research partnership.

However, Canada, the EU and Germany remain dependent on the USA for the necessary chips. Solomon himself acknowledged that Canadian companies and governments rely heavily on American technology such as cloud services.

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