Whatever becoming an “associate member” of the European Union means, what it does is drive home the importance of Prime Minister Mark Carney reaching a deal with the U.S. on trade.
Last year, the value of Canadian goods exported to the 27-member-country EU was $43 billion, or 5.5% of our total merchandise exports of $779 billion.
Ursula von der Leyen brought a new mascot to her annual State of the Union address to the European parliament: the Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney.
The leader of a plucky, like-minded liberal democracy, locked in an unsought trade war with its much bigger bully of a neighbour, Carney crossed the Atlantic and attended this flagship event of Europe’s political calendar to demonstrate his country’s shared values and desire to get closer to the EU. He was rewarded with a standing ovation and the first ever offer of an (invented) status of “associate member” of the EU.
I hope it remains performative BS.
On Wednesday, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen gave an American-style “State of the Union” address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, France. During her speech, she proposed that Canada be admitted as an “associate member” of the ostensibly European Union. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sat in the front row as an honored guest before delivering a speech of his own to the parliament the next day. Taken together, the Leyen-Carney parade of oratorical self-puffery exuded a nauseating bouquet of arrogance, foolishness, incompetence, and stale entitlement.
Mark Carney’s speech to the European Parliament should set off alarm bells across Canada, and the West in particular. In it, Carney praised the European Union’s (EU) power to impose rules and standards “that the world frequently adopts,” otherwise known as the “Brussels Effect.” While intended as a compliment, Alberta and Saskatchewan should hear it as a threat and ask: Is closer integration necessary, and what are its implications?
But it would be good for Carney.
Mark Carney is back in the news as the ubiquitous champion of the old, rules-based international order.
Building on a speech he made in Davos earlier this year to the effect that “middle” powers should huddle together for warmth in an era dominated by superpower rivalry, he sought this week to further cosy up to the EU as an alternative to increasingly hostile relations with Trump’s America.
It’s fair to say that the Canadian prime minister’s speech to the European parliament was more important for its political signalling than its real-world economic significance. Ever since Trump made Canada the butt end of his war on international trade, Carney has ridden a wave of offended Canadian patriotism.
Europe was so much on Mark Carney’s mind early this week that he was talking about it during his inaugural Canada Investment Summit in Toronto.
Canada will seek a “unique security and economic alliance” with the European Union (EU), Carney told the international delegates at the Toronto summit, a historic gathering the Canadian prime minister expects will yield some $1 trillion in investment in Canada over the next few years.
No I don’t.
As Prime Minister Mark Carney presses toward creating a “unique alliance” with the European Union, Canada’s ambassador is ruling out paying directly into the 27-nation bloc’s budget.
“We would be very selective,” Canada’s incoming EU ambassador Jonathan Wilkinson said in an interview with CBC’s The House airing Saturday morning. “This is not across the board. It’s certainly not membership in the European Union.”
But Wilkinson did say there are programs which may require some degree of funding. As an example, he pointed to the EU’s Security Action for Europe (SAFE) program, which offers loans to member states for defence investments.
We’ll pay and pay and pay.
The problem with Prime Minister Mark Carney’s coy courtship of the European Union is that it leaves Canadians bewildered as to the nature of the relationship.
In his speech to the European Parliament Thursday, Carney showered the EU and its officials with praise, pledged strategic cooperation, called for closer ties and predicted an “alliance for the future.”
No one appears to know precisely what it would mean for Canada to become an “associate member” of the European Union. The status does not exist in EU treaties, and its legal, regulatory and commercial implications remain undefined.
That uncertainty should invite caution, but not cynicism. A renewed alliance with Europe could diversify Canadian exports, attract food-processing investment and reduce our overwhelming dependence on the United States. But success will depend on whether Canada secures reciprocal market access or simply agrees to follow more European rules. That could be a problem.
Plans for Canada to join the European Union as an “associate member” have been dismissed as meaningless by diplomats in Brussels.
Ursula von der Leyen, the European Commission president, told Mark Carney, the Canadian prime minister, she wanted to open the door to the unprecedented, and as yet undefined, associate membership in a flagship speech in Strasbourg.
But the offer seemed to wrong-foot Mr Carney, who attended Ms Von der Leyen’s state of the union address.
It is generally accepted that Mark Carney rode an unexpected wave of Canadian nationalism into office, and in many ways his government is still riding it, cresting each time the American president issues another ill-considered public statement.
Yet few weeks have illustrated the basic incoherence of this nationalist project like this one. On Monday and Tuesday, the government hosted the Canada Investment Summit in Toronto, where it proclaimed a new era of economic growth across the country, trumpeting the commitment of hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment across major Canadian industries. It thus signalled an ambitious program of nation-building, spurred by a shared sense of being under threat from an aggrandizing neighbour.
Imagine a back-to-school September of the future — one in which Canada is an official associate member of the European Union.
Parents aren’t driving their university students back to campus, but to the airport. The kids are catching flights to the Netherlands or Spain or France for a year of study under Europe’s Erasmus Plus exchange program.
At those institutes of higher learning, scientists and researchers are collaborating with their Canadian counterparts on technologies to benefit people and businesses on both sides of the Atlantic with Horizon Europe research funding.
Days after Canada agreed to pursue an ill-defined and counterintuitive “associate membership” with the European Union, the continental alliance is handing out further invitations to countries on the other side of the world.
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada on Wednesday to join the 27-nation bloc as its first associate member, framing it as an “Alliance for the Future.” EU officials have offered virtually zero explanation of what that status would mean or how it would change relations with Canada, but European Parliament President Roberta Metsola is already expanding the roster of possible candidates — and Australia is leaping to sign on the dotted line.
There are, as Lenin apparently did not say, decades when nothing happens, and weeks when decades happen. This was one of those weeks: a remarkable series of policy and diplomatic moves that give unmistakable form to what until lately had been mostly rhetorical flourish. The Carney doctrine remains only partly visible, and may only be partly developed, but there’s no denying any more that there is a doctrine.
Eww … this is like reading one of Coyne’s wet dreams.
Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, delivered her ‘State of the European Union’ speech in the European Parliament on Wednesday. The now annual tradition is the EU’s attempt to channel the grand spectacle of the US president’s far more consequential State of the Union address.
