EUROPEAN Commission President Ursula von der Leyen told Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney on Wednesday that she wants to open the door for Canada to become the European Union’s first associate member.
The development is a sign of deepening ties as both confront growing tensions with US president Donald Trump.
“I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada being the first associate member of the EU,” von der Leyen told Carney during her annual State of the European Union address.
Carney received a standing ovation from European politicians. He is due to address the European Parliament on Thursday.
The overture comes as Trump’s tariffs and repeated talk of making Canada the 51st state have pushed Ottawa to seek closer economic and security ties with Europe.
Carney has called for a “unique alliance” with the EU as Canada seeks to reduce its heavy dependence on US trade.
Von der Leyen said Canada and the EU would build on their existing free trade agreement, known as Ceta, with a broader “Alliance for the Future” aimed at creating “a common prosperity and economic security space”.
“Above all, dear Mark, Europe and Canada believe in democracy,” von der Leyen said. “We believe that power does not belong to the strongest, the richest or the loudest, but to all of us. That democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work.”
She said the expanded partnership would cover advanced manufacturing, technology, defence production, the Arctic, energy, critical minerals, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity and economic security.
“This is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength,” she said. “In short, we want to bring the relationship with Canada to the highest level possible.”
Von der Leyen also said the European Union needs a Nato-like mechanism to better respond to drone incidents, acts of sabotage and cyberattacks across Europe, many of them blamed on Russia.
“Europe needs its own counter-hybrid playbook. We urgently need a consensus on how to respond to certain incidents,” von der Leyen said, particularly for acts that “fall below armed aggression but clearly threaten our national security”.
Von der Leyen said that the system should be similar to Article 4 of Nato’s founding treaty, which allows countries believing that their territory is under threat to convene emergency meetings.
“When triggered by one member state, all member states would convene, to co-ordinate a European response, to deter further escalation, and to mitigate the impact,” she said.
Nato’s Article 4 is separate from Article 5, the collective security guarantee that obliges all member countries to come to the aid of an ally under attack.
Von der Leyen also said that the EU commission will also “set out our ideas to make a European Security Council a reality”. It would involve other international partners such as Britain, Canada, Norway and Ukraine, she said. No details were provided.
Officials in Germany, Denmark, Poland have in recent weeks accused Russia of involvement in drone incursions, sabotage, arson, surveillance of defence facilities and planning to use a drone carrying explosives to attack an airport.
Italian fighter jets working with Nato shot down a drone over EU member Lithuania earlier this week, the first time one has been downed in its airspace. It was believed to have entered from Russia’s ally, Belarus.
But Europe and Nato are struggling to know how best to respond to acts that fall short of outright aggression.
Von der Leyen went on to propose banning children under 13 from accessing social media, online games and chatbots.
“I am aware that many perceive the power of Big Tech as overwhelming and impossible to roll back. I disagree,” said the EU executive.
“We do not have to accept addictive features. We do not have to accept children being drawn into ever more extreme content. We do not have to accept that girls have their photos used for AI-generated sexualised images,” she said.
Von der Leyen said that under her proposal “mini accounts” chaperoned by guardians would be granted to kids aged 13-15.
The EU’s 27 member nations will now vote on the proposal, which could spark tensions with Trump, who has long criticised Europe’s tech regulations.
