When President Donald Trump was asked about European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada an “associate member” of the EU, he threatened tariffs if the idea proved to be directed against the United States. His reaction exposed two problems. First, nobody yet knows what such a new category would mean in practice. This was illustrated by a controversy during last week’s EU-Canada summit on whether “associate member” or “alliance for the future” should be used. Secondly, it shows the future of EU–Canada relations risks being framed by Washington’s response rather than by the interests of the EU and Canada themselves.
The EU and Canada should take a different approach. As Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney argued in his 2026 Davos speech, middle powers need to chart their own course. Both partners have good reasons to deepen cooperation, regardless of what the United States or China does. The task now is to turn a promising political announcement into practical agreements that benefit businesses, strengthen economic security and make the partnership more resilient.
The Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) provides a strong starting point. But a decade-old agreement cannot, on its own, define an ambitious new relationship. Modernising CETA, addressing barriers that remain and concluding targeted additional agreements would give substance to the idea of associate membership. The momentum is there; the missing element is a clear plan.
A Reality Check: Has CETA Been a Success?
In her State of the Union address, von der Leyen proposed building on CETA to take relations with Canada “to the highest level possible”. Provisionally applied since 2017, CETA has delivered important benefits and is among the EU’s most significant trade agreements. Yet success should not be confused with completion.
The CETA evaluation identifies room for improvement. Parts of the agreement need updating, some provisions have not been fully implemented and too few companies take advantage of the opportunities already available. Negotiations on a Digital Trade Agreement, launched in March 2026 and concluded at last week’s summit, are a welcomed step. But the EU also needs to complete the unfinished business of ratification: ten member states, including France, have still not ratified CETA, even as Italy, Belgium and Ireland have moved closer. At a time when both economies need predictable trade relationships a stronger partnership starts with making the agreement they already have work better.
An “Ever-Closer” Relationship Must Deliver Practical Benefits
The clearest opportunities lie in removing obstacles that businesses encounter in everyday trade. CETA’s framework for recognising architects’ professional qualifications was an important breakthrough, but it took years to develop and has yet to produce wider recognition across professions. More companies could use CETA’s tariff preferences. Differences in sanitary and phytosanitary rules and limited understanding of geographical indications continue to complicate market access. These are solvable problems, provided regulators and businesses make them priorities.
A practical first step would be a joint audit of trade frictions, particularly those affecting small and medium-sized enterprises. It should identify which rules, procedures and information gaps prevent firms from using CETA, and assign responsibility for fixing them. Better statistics, clearer guidance and more active business outreach would help. So would stronger channels for bilateral investment in smaller companies, including access to private credit.
Cooperation should also extend beyond national capitals. For instance, partnerships between Alberta and the Netherlands, Ontario and Germany, or Quebec and France could connect companies, researchers and regional authorities working on shared industrial challenges. Regular regulatory “stress tests” could expose differences before they become costly barriers. These exercises would also build trust between regulators while making cooperation more responsive to the private sector.
The EU–Canada summit in Montreal last week was a step in the right direction, with initiatives such as an EIB framework for investment in Canadian critical minerals, concluded negotiations on a Digital Trade Agreement, and Canada joining the EU’s supercomputing initiative. However, much of the ever-closer relationship remains undefined, and more concrete substance and commitments are needed.
Geoeconomic Security: A Shared Interest, Not a Reaction
A deeper EU–Canada relationship is also an investment in geoeconomic security: the ability to maintain reliable access to essential inputs, technologies and markets without becoming vulnerable to coercion. Both partners have an interest in diversified supply chains and dependable rules. This is a stronger basis for cooperation than a partnership defined primarily by the actions of third countries.
Critical raw materials are an obvious priority. The EU and Canada could expand their strategic partnership to cover investment, processing, infrastructure and the supply chains needed by both economies. They could also develop a practical “trusted partner” approach for strategically important sectors. Such a status would have to specify what firms and regulators can actually do differently, rather than become another political label.
Clean technologies offer further opportunities. Joint work on hydrogen, small modular nuclear reactors as well as carbon capture and storage could combine investment with compatible environmental standards. Cooperation on Arctic supply chains, specialised equipment and materials could also serve shared economic and security interests. But any expansion into harder security questions needs a clear assessment of what each partner can offer and where cooperation creates genuine mutual gains.
An Idea Bloc Needs Networks of Experts
Economic security increasingly depends not only on physical supplies but also on access to ideas, data and technical knowledge. The profile of globalisation is changing: knowledge-intensive cooperation is shaped increasingly by trust, compatible institutions and shared rules. The EU and Canada are well placed to benefit from belonging to the same emerging “idea bloc”. Their advantage is not simply that they trade with one another, but that they can develop, protect and apply new knowledge together.
That potential requires stronger epistemic communities: networks of researchers, technical specialists, regulators and business experts who share knowledge and help turn it into workable policy. EU–Canada working groups should therefore be more open to universities, standards bodies, companies and independent specialists. Their expertise can help identify workable rules on data, artificial intelligence, mining, manufacturing and emerging technologies.
This is particularly important for digital trade and for AI standardisation. Rather than waiting for broad political declarations, both sides could convene specialist groups to test where rules are compatible, where mutual recognition is feasible and which safeguards are needed for trusted data exchange. Expert-led collaboration would make the partnership more innovative and help ensure that regulatory cooperation produces results beyond government meetings.
From Political Promise to a Clear Roadmap
None of these initiatives requires the EU and Canada to settle the full meaning of “associate membership” or any other chosen term first. The better approach is to start with areas of mutual interest, agree measurable objectives and then use CETA institutions, mutual recognition agreements and targeted mini-deals to deliver them. A roadmap should distinguish what can be achieved quickly from what requires longer negotiations or new political commitments.
This would also provide a more convincing answer to Trump’s intervention. The EU and Canada do not need to build their relationship against the United States, China or anyone else. By strengthening trade, economic security and knowledge networks for their own reasons, they can reduce the ability of other powers to dictate the direction of their partnership. An ever-closer relationship will be credible not because it has a new name, but because it delivers.