In Strasbourg, a muted Carney reins in EU enthusiasm and gives no answers

Aaron Burnett is a senior fellow specializing in Euro-Canadian relations with Canada’s Centre for Strategic Statecraft.

Prime Minister Mark Carney walked to the European Parliament’s lectern Thursday morning in Strasbourg, France, fresh off a clear political victory. But his vision of closer European Union ties had also clashed with harsh reality.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s earlier announcement that she wanted Canada to become the union’s first associate member filled social media feeds on both sides of the Atlantic with something many Canadians were looking for amid U.S. President Donald Trump’s repeated sabre-rattling, tariff levies and annexation threats – a sense of hope and optimism.

Potential naysaying EU states – which Ms. von der Leyen didn’t brief ahead of time – were caught on the back foot. So was Mr. Trump, who said he’d consider it a “hostile” act in Canada became an associate member.

Mr. Carney’s speech needed to answer one crucial question: Can Canada convert its EU optimism into a credible strategic vision for its relationship with Europe – one with workable policy options its EU partners would agree to and Canadians would accept?

The short answer? We still don’t know. After thanking Ms. von der Leyen for her call for Canadian “associate membership,” Mr. Carney steered away from the term, preferring instead “alliance for the future” – while insisting that Canada wasn’t seeking full membership – and that further details would be hashed out in Canadian Parliament and at next month’s EU-Canada Summit in Montreal.

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Mr. Carney went on to list priority areas for co-operation, such as critical raw materials, standards in artificial intelligence, banking, digital trade and defence cooperation – areas in which the EU and Canada have already been negotiating for some time. During a press conference following the speech, Mr. Carney repeatedly deferred questions around “associate membership” to European Parliament President Roberta Metsola, suggesting that his hopes for a more fundamental rethink of the Canada-EU relationship have muted since his arrival in Strasbourg.

Having worked on EU policy for 15 years, I think the reaction from my fellow Canadians to further partnership with the EU – or even membership – has been striking. Recent polling indicates around half of Canadians support joining the EU, while a vast majority across all regions and demographics support closer ties. The EU optimism I’ve seen firsthand from many Canadians in recent days can feel strange to someone who lived in Europe during the Euro crisis, migration waves, Brexit and the rise of the European far-right.

But if harnessed strategically, that optimism can be a tremendous asset to both Canada and Europe, by allowing both sides to rediscover some long-lost geostrategic agency through pooling diplomatic, political and economic resources. Mr. Carney’s speech suggests he understands what Canada brings to the table very well, particularly its ability to provide crucial energy and mineral security guarantees to Europe. What is less clear are the concrete asks he wishes to make of Europe in return. Although he mentioned greater financial services and AI standards integration, it’s still not clear if or why the Prime Minister believes a fundamental change to Europe and Canada’s treaty relationship is necessary to bring all this about.

It’s also clear that most Canadians don’t yet grasp the resources, strategic choices and trade-offs that further EU integration may require – and if they knew, if they would still want to make those trade-offs.

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More trade barriers exist between Ontario and British Columbia than between Germany and Spain. Norway and Iceland aren’t full members of the EU, but are obliged to implement and enforce most EU rules with no binding vote in how they’re made. Countries such as Georgia and Ukraine have association agreements with the EU that bake in oversight from the European Court of Justice over key areas. Even if it’s not seeking full membership, it’s still not clear what terms might apply to Canada.

Associate membership may sound good but no legal framework for it exists and all EU member states would have to come to a consensus. Mr. Carney will need to win these leaders over and keep Canadians on board – and the details missing from his speech Thursday suggest a backtrack in rhetoric after the cool reception many European capitals gave.

All this doesn’t make a tighter EU-Canada connection a bad idea. But the EU is a much larger partner and known to drive hard bargains. To succeed, Mr. Carney will need to clearly advocate a strategic vision all of Canada can get behind and advocate for it consistently – likely over several years.