Carney sounds out a new EU associate-member status for Canada while Ottawa denies seeking membership
Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is exploring closer ties with the European Union, including a yet-to-be-created associate member status, according to a Wall Street Journal report citing unnamed EU and Canadian officials, who said the EU is open to creating one. A senior Canadian government source told CTV News that Canada is not seeking EU membership in any capacity. The report landed in the middle of Canada's trade war with the United States and ahead of Carney's Thursday speech to the European Parliament in Strasbourg.
Geopolitics··Morning
The reported plan: free movement inside strategic supply chains
According to the Journal's Sunday report, Carney wants closer links with the EU, including an associate member status that does not yet exist; the paper attributed to unnamed EU and Canadian officials the view that the bloc, which has not been flexible on membership rules in the past, is open to creating it. The two sides are discussing ways to let goods, services and workers in strategic supply chains such as energy, artificial intelligence, defence and critical minerals move freely, which in the paper's words would effectively shift the EU border. Also under discussion are joint undersea cables, data centres, cloud storage and satellite networks, and infrastructure to ship Canadian energy to Europe. The paper also attributed to two unnamed officials familiar with the matter that Carney has spoken with several EU leaders, most notably French President Emmanuel Macron, about letting Canadians live and work visa-free in the EU. The European Commission, Canada's embassy in Brussels and Macron's press office did not respond to requests for comment.[1], [2]
Ottawa pushes back: not seeking membership in any capacity
After the report, a senior Canadian government source told CTV News that Canada is not seeking EU membership in any capacity. That pushback came ahead of Carney's address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg on Thursday, where he is expected to set out his vision for Canada-EU ties in a challenging geopolitical environment. Ottawa is locked in a historic trade war with the United States, with relations having deteriorated sharply since President Donald Trump returned to the White House in early 2025; tariffs cover tens of billions of dollars of cross-border trade and there is no sign of de-escalation. The reporting also recalls how fierce the resistance to a far more modest trade deal was: more than a decade after the Canada-EU trade agreement was struck, and nine years after it provisionally entered into force, several EU countries have still not ratified it.[2], [1]
Merz's model designed for Ukraine, and the Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon visit
The associate-membership idea has a precedent: German Chancellor Friedrich Merz outlined earlier this year an associate-member model, originally intended for Ukraine, that deepens ties with the EU without requiring full membership, and the model could also apply to Canada. Securing such a status could still prove difficult, because the EU has strict membership rules and a lengthy process for changing its existing arrangements. With Trump-era tariffs and threats marking transatlantic relations, Paris announced a separate step: according to the Élysée, Macron and Carney are to visit together next week the French territory of Saint-Pierre-et-Miquelon, about 20 km off Canada's Atlantic coast, in what will be the first such visit by a Canadian prime minister.[1]
