The Decibel - A reality check on Canada’s future with the EU

Episode Date: September 21, 2026

Canada and the EU are working toward a more integrated partnership. As the relationship with the U.S. becomes increasingly less reliable, Canadians seem to be overwhelmingly in favour of the idea of getting closer to Europe. But what could this partnership actually entail – and how much more would Canada be getting than it has now?Today, the Globe’s international affairs columnist, Doug Saunders, is on the show. He’ll discuss the geopolitical implications of Carney’s address to the European Parliament, and what shape the relationship could take going forward.Questions? Comments? Ideas? E-mail us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

Nothing is official yet, but Canada and the European Union are working towards a more integrated partnership. Prime Minister Mark Carney was in Europe last week. That was when the EU Commissioner, Ursula von der Leyen, opened the door for Canada to become the EU's first associate member. And it seems that Canadians are overwhelmingly in favor of getting closer to the EU. An abacist data poll from mid-September found that 80% of Canadian, Canadians support deeper strategic cooperation with the European Union on foreign policy, defense, and economic priorities. But the way this partnership would work is still up in the air.

And not everyone is on board. So today we're talking to Doug Saunders. He's the Globe's International Affairs columnist. He'll tell us how this could actually happen and if it might affect our relationship with the U.S. I'm Manika Ramman-Welms, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Doug, thank you so much for being here today. It's a real pleasure. I want to start by asking you about how Mark Carney is handling this moment.

He spoke to the European Parliament last week, and his speech focused on our history with Europe and how we have shared priorities of democracy and working together. But, Doug, what did you take away from that speech? There was a lot of buildup to that speech on Thursday and to European. President Ursula von der Leyen's speech the previous day announcing that they wanted Canada to have what was called an associate membership of the European Union, not something that exists right now or has ever existed, and not something that's been defined specifically in either speeches. And this caused in advance of it and during it and after it, just a flurry of concern, excitement, worry, criticism, endorsement.

But I think in retrospect that we sort of mistook the forest for the trees in that really the big thing out of this was the speech. It was the announcement. What Mark Carney and Ursula von der Leyen declaring that Canada had a special relationship with the European Union and would have something called an associate membership, that was the political action, that declaration that the things that had been done over the last 10 or 15 years, the Canada European Trade Agreement,

the new military alliances with Europe's, what I call its post-Nado defense alliance, those are the existing substance, and now it has a name. The announcement was the thing. This was big geopolitics on Prime Minister Carney's part. He wanted the world to know that we had a special relationship with Europe. That's the sort of relationship that we no longer have with the United States.

And to some extent it worked because President Trump immediately revolted against it and threatened to put even more as yet unnamed tariffs on Europe for having been friendly with Canada and that sort of thing. And you could say that as sort of a political, judo move, it worked because it caused the president to acknowledge that simply other Western democracies speaking to each other was enough for him to declare them enemies and that sort of thing. And I do want to ask you more about the U.S. too, because this is obviously a huge part of what is pushing Canada towards Europe. But Doug, you're seeing some really interesting things about how the speech itself that

Carney gave, this was the moment. What do you think Carney was trying to do here with this speech? Well, from my understanding from his people, this began shortly after he became Prime Minister with an exercise among his staff to analyze all relationships that every country had with the European Union that wasn't a member of the European Union in every possible form of relationship in every sector and so on. And that was part of a larger project to look at ways to hedge away from the United States, to try to restore the lost trade from the U.S. tariffs by engaging in trade and investment relationships with new partners. And those included some, you know, some unsavory partners restoring trade with China, a big agreement with the United Arab Emirates, which

involved holding our noses over its financing mass murder and these sort of things. Whereas Europe was something that, as your statistics noted, Canadians like they want, they desire. Most Canadians would even like us to be a member of the European Union. That's not going to happen. Even if we want it, the European Constitution doesn't really allow that, like a non-European country. Turkey might join at some point because it's geographical. geographically and politically European, but anything you do with the European Union has to involve the assent of all 27 member countries.

Which is a tall order, yeah. Well, particularly given the diversity of politics they have and might have in the future. But it seems like Carney is not trying to be a member of the European Union here, right? So they ruled out that from the beginning. So then they started looking at this sort of pointillist list of little things. Beyond the free trade and investment agreement, we do have. which is, it actually proved to be much more robust and substantial than we had anticipated. Everyone thought that the CETA, as it's known, Canada, Europe trade agreement.

Everyone thought the analyses at the time, so a decade, a dozen years ago, projected that it would increase Canadian trade with the EU by 20%. And it's already, even though it's barely begun to be in place, it's already increased, that trade by something like 76%. Significant. That's a lot already. And then Carney last year negotiated various military agreements, which were kind of paired in with buying 12 submarines from a German-Norwegian manufacturer, but also becoming a member of the EU Defense Procurement Alliance and various other things.

So the big pieces are already on the board. I guess this is what I'm wondering about, right? We have this trade agreement, CETA, we have the security and defense agreement. with Europe, we're even going to be part of Eurovision as of next year, right, Doug? Which has nothing to do with Europe or the European Union, by the way. I mean, there's a reason why Australia and... There's a lot of countries in that. Yeah. Kazakhstan and Egypt and so on are in it. It's a broadcasting consortium. It just has to have the word Euro in its name. But we have a lot of, you know, a lot of points of contact here, right? So I guess what else is the Canadian

government looking for from this partnership? Well, that's the question. And they did identify a whole shopping list of things that could be done with Europe. I think the sort of flash of genius, or some people would, more cynical people would say the flash of marketing, was to bundle these pointless things together with a name like associate member. Now, let's just put aside what those things are. I'll point out, as many have, an associate membership is not a thing that exists. And it would have to be created, but there is a thing, and I'm told by people in Brussels that this associate membership would, in effect, be a thing that does exist called an association

agreement, which is a catch-all term for agreements between the European Union and countries that are not members of the European Union. And there are something like 20 to 22 of these, depending on how you count them, already in effect. countries like Chile have them and Egypt has one. So this is a kind of agreement that Europe would make with countries, not necessarily within the European Union, but to work on things like trade, I suppose? Things like trade and all sorts of things. There are various tiers of this.

They're not formally called tiers, but in effect, the top level of association agreement is the kind that Norway and Iceland and Lichtenstein have with the European Union, which is basically everything you'd get as a member of the European Union without being a member of the European Union. So Norway is a member of the single market. That's the thing that gave us the European Union starting in the early 50s. It's the idea that the products, goods and services from one country are domestic goods and services in all the other countries. So it's a step beyond a free trade agreement. With a free trade agreement, if you want to export something to the Union. You need to get it inspected, apply to have it done, and it needs to meet the European

Union standards, which are tough, right? Lots of regulations. Lots of Canadian companies have decided it's not worth the 10% or whatever extra export to change their manufacturing or change how they feed their cows or something to meet European standard. But if you're in the single market, like Norway is, all of your goods without any pre-approval are just automatically in the European Union. Your Your citizens can work and live in any European Union country, use their health system and that sort of thing. You have to, of course, do that for their citizens and that sort of thing. But is that something that Canada is looking for? Is that the kind of thing?

No. They ruled that out for a good reason. Norway, in exchange for that in Iceland and Liechtenstein, first of all, yes, they have to follow all EU laws. They have to rewrite all of their laws so they conform to EU laws. That's one thing. Second thing is you don't get a vote on any of those laws because you're not a member. You don't have seats in the European Parliament. So you just have to take those laws and not participate in making them.

And third of all, you pay dues to the European Union billions per year. But it sounds like all of those things are not what Canada is looking for here then. That would require some sort of referendum or something like that, at the very least, a parliamentary vote. And no, that was ruled out from the beginning. Maybe there are people in Canada who would like it. I mean, you know, I think I'd kind of like it, but it's not going to happen. So then the next tier in my definition of association agreement is what's called the accession agreement, which is what countries get when they are on a long runway to eventually joining the European Union.

Serbia has one. Turkey's had one in the past. And Ukraine was given one in 2014 after Russia invaded. That's not what Canada is looking for either. No, exactly. If we're not looking for membership and Europeans aren't talking about non-European countries becoming members. So what's left? We're left with the third tier, which is like what Chile has or all of the countries of Central America have an association agreement.

And some of those association agreements are less robust or good for the economy than CETA than Canada's existing trade agreement is with the European Union. So it's not necessarily by definition a step up. So in other words, we'll have something that will effectively be an association agreement, so it'll require the assent of all the countries, that'll rope in all of the little things we're able to negotiate in the areas of visas and travel, in the areas of defense, in the areas of single sector standardization with the European Union and so on. There are all sorts of areas that we can negotiate little things that would improve our standing or that would provide benefits to Canadians.

So I'm not saying this is nothing. But it doesn't mean that there will be a substantial change in relationship between Canada and the European Union. There'll be a bunch of nice little policies that'll have a name. So this is getting back to your initial point then, Doug, that the point of this then was the speeches last week and the announcement that we are looking at these closer ties. The declaration of love is more important than the eventual ring and getting into bed together. We'll be right back. All right.

So, Doug, we know why Canada is interested in this partnership with the EU. We want to strengthen ties with other countries because, of course, the U.S. is becoming an increasingly less reliable partner, especially when it comes to trade. But what about the EU here? Why does Europe want to partner with Canada? Well, I mean, I think it was Henry Kissinger who famously said, when I want to talk to Europe, who do I phone? Right. And when we're talking about Europe, Ursula von der Leyen can say a lot of things about what Europe would like to do. But in the end, it's a basically federation of 27 sovereign countries.

Anything they do requires the assent of all 27. It's not necessarily certain that all of those 27 countries are interested in having closer relations with Canada. Canada is not a big volume of trade or tourism or anything like that with the European Union. There's a lot of respect for Canada among some of the more functional democratic governments of European Union countries. I don't think we should underestimate what an impact Mark Carney had in his various speeches in articulating how to build a Western democratic system and alliance in defense, in politics, in economic things, in absence of United States beneficial participation. And that will carry things a certain way.

And this is sort of a sweet moment in the sense that there aren't any countries that, are currently outside the fold of democratic norms, you could say, after April when Hungarians voted out the very autocratic-minded, very pro-Russian government of Victor Orban, now Hungary is back in the fold. Poland is at least at the parliamentary level and so on. So you could imagine getting all 27, but that could flip at any moment. It is possible, not certain, but possible that the French election could produce a far-right authoritarian-minded government of Marine Le Penh, who has already declared, and her deputies have already declared that they would want nothing of any kind of relationship with Canada.

So it does sound like there is pressure from the other side that maybe not everyone wants this relationship with Canada. But, you know, the European Commissioner, she is talking in very glowing terms about this relationship. So what is in it for Europe in that sense? Like, what are they looking for when they're looking at this positive relationship with us? Well, an example of what they're looking for is the submarine deal, right? So practical trade stuff then.

Canada's decision to buy German-Norwegian submarines rather than to buy Korean submarines. That's not just purchasing 12 submarines, which is expensive enough, but that is maintaining them and staffing them for 20 years and so on. That was among the biggest things that happened in the German and Norwegian economies last year. I was in Germany for part of that, and it was all hands on deck. All members of the German cabinet were expected to represent, to come to Canada, to engage with that and so on. So there are forms of engagement that get them excited. We also hear about energy? Yes, Europe is in the midst of a process to pivot away from its former reliance on Russian, particularly natural gas.

has done a pretty good job of actually finding other sources or shifting to alternatives. So that crisis has kind of passed. But certainly there's lots of talk about new channels for energy. And then what other areas? Well, there's lots of talk about trying to negotiate us better travel relations and things like that. It would be very desirable to many Canadians to have, I mean, we already have visa free travel with every European Union. country, but to have the express thing where you take the short lineup at the airport that is normally for EU plus Norway, Switzerland, etc., non-members.

And there's many people who would like to be able to stay and work in the EU for longer than 90 days. Which is the current visa requirements. Current. Current visa-free stay is limited to 90 days. So that would have material benefit. And we have an antecedent to that in that Australia over the science. negotiated a form of work visa with the EU, which is a four-year work visa, and it doesn't

require a specific job or job offered. That would be appealing to Canadians. So there's a mixture of very substantial defense and economic things that would be incremental builds upon what we already have, plus a bunch of cultural and labor mobility and travel-type things that would be nice to have. You could say that would be worth throwing into that grab bag. Okay. In our last few minutes here, Doug, I do want to ask you directly about the United States. We've talked around it a little bit. But let's actually focus on the impact that this could have with our relationship with the United States. Is our closing up to Europe going to affect our relationship with our southern neighbor? I mean, it shouldn't in any rational world, a country having a free trade agreement or a cultural relationship with one Democratic bloc should be seen.

as a win-win for any other entity that we have those sorts of relationships with. But of course, this is Donald Trump's America. And there are some voices saying, why are we doing this? Why are we poking the lion? Because he did get very angry, performatively so, and threaten Europe and Canada for even discussing having a nominal symbolic relationship. But, you know, I think the Canadian government recognized earlier than most. that this is not just Trump, that there's not going to be any easy going back.

There hopefully will be at some point in the imaginable future, but that hedging away is not just a symbolic thing to indicate that Canada has other economic relationships, but it's something we have to do in the longer term, in part because we don't have any reason to believe that this won't happen again in the United States. it's no longer a reliable partner for relationships. We imagine during the first Trump term that once he was out of office and after he'd failed to hold his insurrection and all that stuff, that that had been a weird interregnum in the United States. That had been a weird four-year period when they went into a dark place and we barely rescued our trade relationship and it took all hands on deck effort for Canada to do that. but that was over and let's forget about that period.

The fact that a plurality of Americans voted him back in after all that and he went further and turned Canada into a named enemy and even using the word enemy and jeopardized our economic relationship in material ways, that does not leave anyone with any faith that this isn't going to happen again. Maybe we'll have four years of normal politics of either, or right in the United States, eight years even, but how can we be sure this won't happen again? That as the prime minister says, everything isn't going to be written in pencil. And the big eraser won't be pulled out again very soon.

And I should say, Prime Minister Carney has done a good job of persuading Europeans of that. They rushed in last in 2025 to strike free trade agreements with the United States, which were terrible for them, right? They were required to invest billions and billions in the United States, and they still had heavy tariffs and so on. And then within months, Trump had basically ripped up the trade agreements with the European Union and with the UK. And suddenly this Canadian approach seemed wiser. So I think what Europeans most took out of Mark Carney's speech was not we're going to have a formalized quasi-membership relationship, but we're going to be having. but we're going to be having a conversation about how to work around the problem of the United States' absence from the liberal democratic community and from normal economic relations.

Doug, it's always interesting to talk to you. Thank you so much for taking the time to be here. My pleasure. Thanks. That was Doug Saunders, the Globe's International Affairs columnist. That's it for today. I'm Manika Ram and Wilms. This episode is mixed. by Rachel Levy McLaughlin.

Our producers are Madeline White, Cheryl Sutherland, Rachel Levy McLaughlin, and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening,

and I'll talk to you tomorrow.