The Current - Where will the Carney-EU romance lead?

Episode Date: September 17, 2026

EU leader Ursula von der Leyen wants Canada to become the European Union's first associate member, but what Canada wants is a “unique relationship” instead. Is Europe ready for an expansion? And what's in it for Canada? Jeremy Kinsman, former Canadian ambassador to the EU, and Berlin-based EU expert Nicolai von Ondarza weigh in.

The nation is watching Alberta, and we know it. I'm Kathleen Petty, host of West of Center. Every week I speak with the people shaping Alberta politics from pipelines to separation to help you understand what's going on here and why it matters to the entire country. Pull up a chair and join me, West of Center. Find us and follow wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC podcast.

Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is the current podcast. The opportunities that can be created by an alliance for the future are the product of our common values, our compatible systems, our complementary strengths. And deepening and widening our relationship will strengthen our sovereignty, improve affordability and operability. and security for our citizens, while safeguarding our abilities to live our lives as we choose. I also want to be precise about what I am not proposing. I'm not proposing a third block in order to become a great power rival only with better manners. We do not seek power to dominate others. the contrary. We are pursuing resilience so no one, no one can control our open markets, impair our sovereignty, threaten our territorial integrity, or undermine our freedoms,

our democracies, our rule of law. Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the European Parliament this morning in Strausburg, France, calling for closer ties to the European Union. He outlined a long list of areas in which he wants that to happen, from critical minerals and defense to AI and technology, to more opportunities for Canadian students to study in the EU. He did not say the phrase associate member, that phrase that European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen used in her pitch yesterday, calling for Canada to be the first country to take that title. Mark Carney spoke to cheers, and there is clearly a lot of support in the EU for a closer alliance with Canada. Here is how German MP Damien Balsalager put it.

Prime Minister Carney, I'm really excited we are formalizing our long-distance relationship. Our history has had its ups and downs, but hey, we recently had a bad breakup with the Brits, and you seem to be going through a rough patch with the U.S. So clearly we are both open for something new. And for us, choosing you, Canada and Missicana, is quite easy. You have green hydrogen to keep us warm. You have maple syrup to keep us happy and heated rivalry to keep us entertained. Not everyone in Europe is quite so excited.

Reporting from Politico suggests some member states were taken off guard by President von der Leyen's announcement. Here at home, the opposition conservatives are calling for more debate and raising questions about what a deeper alliance with the EU would actually mean for Canada. Jeremy Kinsman is a former Canadian ambassador to the European Union as well as Russia, Italy, and High Commissioner to the UK, also a distinguished fellow of the Canadian International Council, co-host of the Red Passport podcast, and he is in Vancouver, pardon me, Victoria this morning. Jeremy, good morning to you. Good morning to you, Matt. Why should Canada get closer to the European Union? What is in it for us? Well, it's a remarkable political project.

When I was in Brussels or as a Chinese ambassador, I remember him saying in that big, grand Chinese way, it's one of these things, these events that happens every 500 years or so, and that was the pooling of the sovereignty of these countries so as to end Europe, murderous wars forever. That's how it started.

And now it's become the my as big, it's a superpower in trade, a trading block. It has difficulties because there are 27 members. But it's a huge magnetic pole of 450 million people. And we've been talking about better relations, rhetoric and stuff since I started doing this way back in 1970. too, Matt. And this is a remarkable jump. It's like a pole vault to another height. And the height has substance. But you mentioned rhetoric, and there's a lot of it. And the language matters here because Ursula von der Leyen is proposing this associate membership for Canada. That category doesn't actually exist. The prime minister didn't use that language. He says he wants a unique relationship.

What would that relationship look like? You could imagine that people in this country might be confused as to what exactly we would be getting. Well, what we would be getting would be a very privileged relationship with this huge market. We're not going to become a member of the single market ourselves, and we're not going to be a member of the European Union, and subject to what they call the acquis communautaire, which is the collection of all of the regulations and laws in common that they have. but we are going to be a privileged partner. The EU wants to expand. It's what will I say?

It's scale of relationships. You know, it's obviously a perilous world. It's fragmenting. And they want their part to be attached to like-minded countries with resonance and traction that can, you know, add something to them. and they certainly add something to us. You have to ask yourself, Matt, right, you know, today, 2026, to the extent to which geography, physical geography,

where are lakes and rocks are situated, mean the same constraints that they used to, with Internet, with new logistics, with all of the things that transform space, much more excessively. And so I wouldn't think of Europe as, you know, it's always across the ocean. It's far. It's not far.

And quite literally, Hans Island, I think, is several miles from Greenland. But it's not far. And it's very close in spirit, I've got to say, that we both inhabit the same basic social model with the same assumptions. I guess we're both somewhat more. communitarian than the much more rather libertarian model of, say, the United States. It's not against the United States. It's just a natural affinity. Carney used that word this morning.

He used that word affinity. And I think it's a very good word. Pierre Pahliav, conservative leader, reacted on social media yesterday, saying, Conservatives are clear, we support the decades-old free trade and NATO defense alliance with Europe, But no EU taxes, no EU laws, no EU open border immigration policies should be imposed on Canadians. Should be, should Canadians be concerned about that? Absolutely not. Why not?

Well, because none of those things are on the table. We're not going to have open immigration. In fact, I got to tell you something, when I was in Brussels or when I was in Italy or in Britain, the one topic on which those countries sought advice on immigration was us. They look to us for advice on immigration. We're not going to be looking to them for advice. Anyway, they don't have open immigration, Matt. They've been trying to develop a selective immigration model, such as we do, some kind of a point system.

What is confused, actually, for many Europeans, speaking of the rise of the populace right, is they confuse immigration with asylum seekers. asylum seekers that were spawned by the Syrian civil war, millions of them. And that has clouded what's going on. But they don't have immigration. They have free movement of labor within European Union. And I don't want to get too deep into the immigration debate. But I guess one of the reasons why this is being raised in part is because there hasn't been a lot of debate in this country,

but what this would actually look like, what the details of this would look like. And it's something that the deputy co-leader of the Conservative Party, Melissa Lansman, raised. Have a listen to this. None of this has been discussed here with media or with parliament, with parliamentarians or with Canadians. And I think they need the straight goods on this. Jeremy Kinsman, the NDP agreed with her. What sort of debate should we have in Canada about these talks? I think we'll have a big debate.

But you know, Matt, one of the most extraordinary things in my career I've seen has been the last eight or nine months of diplomacy to, in a sense, cook this up. And no, it's Carney's style. He doesn't feel obliged to tell the press about everything he's doing. What about telling Canadians through Parliament and convening Parliament to say,

this is what we're doing, if we're going to create an alliance? I think he will. But you can't tell people what you're doing until you've arranged with the people with whom you're doing it, what it's going to be. In other words, if you have a confidential conversation, with Ursula von der Leyen or with Chancellor Mertz about the possibility, and then you go and talk about it to the press,

it puts them in a bind. I mean, that's what diplomacy is. We got enchanted with open diplomacy, and now we've done the diplomacy. Now it's the case for exposition of what's involved for Canadians and put it to Parliament, and Parliament will have to approve this. I know it's inconvenient for the press, and particularly to get scooped by the Wall Street Journal.

But, you know, this is adult stuff. And it's not gotcha. It's not one-upsmanship. It's not secretive? Well, it's not secretive. Look, you do things in secret when they're not ready to be public. Is that okay? I think so.

It's also raising, as one can imagine, the attention and capturing the attention of the U.S. President, Donald Trump, who spoke about this invitation by the European Union to Canada yesterday. Have a listen to the U.S.S. President. I think it's laughable. Look, the whole thing with Canada, Canada has been a terrible trade partner. And no, I don't see that. And if they do that, if I think it's at all a hostile act, I will put very serious tariffs or stop trading with Europe on many things. We're almost out of time, but given the fact that we still have a relationship, a very close relationship with the United States, do you worry when the U.S. President says that this could be a hostile act, do you worry that this could torpedo the negotiations such as they are to rebuild that relationship? I don't think so, Matt. Look, you said it captured the attention of the President of the United States. You know, his attention will wander in 28 seconds to something else.

and we can't comment. You can't go down every rabbit hole that this guy, the president creates with his remarks. The relationship with the United States is absolutely foundational to our country. And we're not substituting another relationship for this one. It's additive, you know, it's an extension. It's an enlargement of our scale and scope and imagination and sovereignty and business. and research and everything else.

And the rest of what he says pretty well implies exactly one of the reasons why we're doing it. Jeremy Kinsman, good to speak with you about this. Thank you very much. You bet. Jeremy Kinsman is the former Canadian ambassador to the European Union,

distinguished fellow at the Canadian International Council. He was in Victoria, British Columbia. The nation is watching Alberta, and we know it. I'm Kathleen Petty, host of West of Center. Every week I speak with the people shaping Alberta politics from pipelines to separation to help you understand what's going on here and why it matters to the entire country. Pull up a chair and join me west of center. Find us and follow wherever you get your podcasts. Nikolai von Ondarza is head of the EU and Europe Research Division

at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs. He's also an associate fellow in the Europe program at Chatham House, and he's in Berlin. this morning. Nikolai, hello to you. Yeah, good morning to you. You are at a conference on European Affairs. So what is the buzz when it comes to this news at your gathering? Yeah, so there's certainly a lot of attention on Canada at the moment. And this idea of an associate EU membership is, at least for those people here working on EU affairs, a completely new idea.

It could be filled in a lot of different ways. And so there's a lot of chatter on how that can actually be implemented. and also what this alliance associate membership would mean for the role of the EU and Canada on the global affairs, like you just discussed, vis-a-vis the United States and other partners. What does Europe get out of a closer relationship with Canada? So I think there are several things. Of course, there's a symbolic value. The EU is itself under pressure and to have like-minded states, like Canada, to work closely trying to protect what is left of the rules-based international order is a big boon.

There's the economic interest cooperating on scarce material, on fossil resources, on artificial religions. And of course, there are the people-to-people contact. Canada has always been a close partner for Europeans. And I think all of that combined make Canada for you a very attractive partner. How much of this do you think has to do, and we heard in the introduction a lot of fawning towards the prime minister, Mark Carney. How much of this has to do with his own ties to Europe?

I think it certainly plays into it. Mark Carney is, to some extent, at the moment, a leading figure for the liberal West. What is still there of it. And so he certainly has a special voice in Europe. But I think it goes beyond that. Also, Ursula von der Leyen has a major interest in cooperating with Canada and the invitation to the speech and to the European Parliament. Yesterday, I think, was an appreciation not only of the contact to Mr. Carney personally, but also of this interest to work with Canada together.

Canada has a trade agreement with Europe. It's called CETA. It was signed almost a decade ago, and yet there are 10 member states that haven't yet ratified that agreement. What sort of political will, beyond the standing ovations in the applause and the flowery language, what sort of political will is there to make a new agreement work if the old agreement hasn't been signed into business by 10 states? I mean, that comes down to the complexity of the European Union. The EU is, of course, a union of 27 member states,

and there are some trade agreements where both the member states say yes on the EU level and then have to ratify nationally. And for CETA, the argument is that some member states like France or Poland have still issues with the agricultural part and haven't ratified it on the national level, but the EU Canada bit is already in place. And this helps us understand how far we can go with the EU-Canada, associate membership alliances, whatever. name you put on it. There's a lot of goodwill to work together in security affairs, to have

better access to critical materials, work together on AI. But if we listen closely to Mr. Kani's speech this morning in the European Parliament, he already excluded agriculture from any future agreement. And there you can see there will be difficult bits coming up and there will have to be discussions once we have the details in Canada as well as the 27 EU member states. There's also been pushback to the idea of Canada being an associate member of the The EU political has some reporting from unnamed diplomats from some states saying this felt blindsided by this announcement. You have one French member in the chamber who said, in her words, who gave you, you being Ursula von der Leyen, a democratic and popular mandate for this? Do you think this has been handled well?

That's hard to say. First, I have to say the French MP you cited is, of course, from the far right, very anti-EU. so in general anti-Uzola von der Leyen. So I think that's good to know as a background. What's clear from the reporting now said Ursula von der Leyen, it was clear in signet there's going to be an announcement of a further partnership. We already heard over the weekend this idea of the unique alliance and the member states were in the picture on that.

But the phrase associate membership, that was certainly new. And as far as we know from the public, not pre-negotiated amongst the EU 27 member states. And so there will have to be a lot of work done in the next couple of weeks. By the end of October, there's going to be an EU-Canada summit in Canada. And that's basically these are the six weeks to trash out some details. How could that actually look like and what will be the eventual name? And I think then we will know how far the member states and how far Canada is willing to go. What do you think this might look like?

I mean, would it be comparable to how, for example, non-EU members like Switzerland and Norway operate when it comes to accessing new markets? It's probably going to be somewhere in that ballpark. The EU has this option of signing so-called association agreement, and you can put a lot in that. You can put in their security corporation. You can put their sort of visa liberalization or student exchanges. You can put there in some access to the single market. But one crucial question that will be put before Canada,

the EU often only opens its market when the partners, except EU rules and regulations. And that's been a big issue with the United Kingdom after Brexit. That's always a negotiation with Norway and Switzerland. And so once there are these finer details, I assume there will have to be a lot of difficult negotiations to come to a package that's acceptable to both sides. I mean, the Prime Minister used the word sovereignty numerous times in his speech.

Does that suggest to you that he is cognizant of those concerns? That's a top-of-mind issue for us here in this country right now. Yeah, and he will certainly know that, I mean, he has his past in the UK. He is very well aware of the Brexit discourse and the difficult discussions around the sovereignty around Brexit. And my assumption is that he will try to negotiate something where Canada gets better access to parts of the EU market, but certainly can still proclaim this sovereignty. And this is a big question for the EU, which has, as we discussed earlier, this geopolitical interest in this partnership. But we'll also have to look at what signal does it tend to Norway, Switzerland.

Maybe others will say if Canada gets this, we want this too. So for both sides, I think it will be a careful balancing out to threshold all these details. We just have a few seconds left to the elephant in the room and not mentioned directly in his speech as the United States and Donald Trump. But Donald Trump certainly is paying attention, calling this possibly a hostile act threatening tariffs. Do you think members of the EU are concerned about retribution from the U.S.? Less direct retribution, but more whether it will keep, the US will keep up support for security in Europe. So if I would have to name some countries which might be wobbly, it's the Baltics, Poland, who have a very high interest in a security corporation. Ursula Funderline set herself, this is a partnership not against anyone, but it's very clear that both the EU and Canada are looking to diversify their relationship.

and that's from the U.S. point of view, probably an encroachment from the European Union in what Trump's likes to call the Western Hemisphere. So I think the EU cannot escape this tension with the U.S. Nikolai, good to speak with you about this. We'll be watching. Thank you very much for this. Thank you. Nikolai von Ondanzara is the head of the EU Europe Research Division at the German Institute for International and Security Affairs.

We reached him in Berlin. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca. slash podcasts.