Von der Leyen invites Canada to become the EU’s first associate member

Ursula von der Leyen told the European Parliament on 16 September that she wants Canada to become the European Union’s first “associate member.” The offer came in her annual State of the Union address in Strasbourg, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney in the chamber. Lawmakers rose to applaud. Von der Leyen walked across to embrace him.

“I said we must urgently reimagine our partnerships. So I would like to work with you on opening the door for Canada to be the first associate member of the EU,” she said. She addressed him as “Dear Mark.” Carney is the first foreign head of government to sit through the speech. He is due to address the Parliament on 17 September. An EU-Canada summit is scheduled for late October in Montreal.

The legal fact underneath the applause is simple. The EU treaties do not contain an associate-member category. Germany’s Friedrich Merz floated a similar label for Ukraine in May as a waystation to full accession. Member states were cool then. They, not the Commission president, would have to invent the status and write it into law.

What von der Leyen can offer without a treaty change is an upgrade of the existing Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement, CETA. She called the next stage an “Alliance for the Future” that would create “a common prosperity and economic security space.” The list she read out covers advanced manufacturing, a tech alliance, integrated defence industrial bases, a flagship Arctic project, energy, critical minerals, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum computing, cybersecurity and economic security.

Ottawa answered in a statement the same day. “We welcome President von der Leyen’s proposal that Canada and the European Union move beyond the CETA to an Alliance for the Future,” it said. Carney had already been talking this week about a “unique alliance” with the bloc. Both capitals have been looking for partners after a year of tariffs and political pressure from President Donald Trump, including his talk of making Canada the 51st US state.

Trump’s first public reaction was hostile. He called the plan “laughable” and threatened to cut trade with the EU if it went ahead. That response is part of the story von der Leyen is telling: Europe and Canada, in her words, “see the world with the same eyes” on AI, climate, the Arctic and geopolitics, and have stood together on Ukraine, defence, raw materials and supply chains.

The UK will watch the file with particular care. London has spent years asking Brussels for a more flexible relationship short of membership. If Canada receives a new legal form that Britain does not, the comparison will be immediate. Ukraine and other accession candidates will ask why a G7 country on the other side of the Atlantic is being offered a seat-adjacent arrangement while they wait in the queue.

None of that is settled. Associate membership, if it is more than a phrase, would have to define voting rights, budget contributions, regulatory alignment, freedom of movement and defence obligations. Von der Leyen did not answer those questions on Wednesday. She said the partnership was “not against anyone else, but for our common strength.” The next test is whether the 27 governments want to spend political capital on a category that does not yet exist, and whether Carney can sell Canadians a deeper European tie while managing the much larger economic relationship with the United States.