In the few months since Prime Minister Mark Carney made closer ties between Canada and Europe a priority as an alternative to the United States, the continent could be considered a less appealing partner.
In France, demonstrations have left thousands of buildings burned or looted and at least 1,000 police officers injured. A far-right political party that wants to rethink France’s relationship with the European Union is leading in the polls. Investors are shunning French debt as credit rating agencies sound warnings about its high level.
In Germany this month, a far-right party began overseeing a state’s legislature, a first since the Nazi era. Across much of Europe, centrist parties are losing ground to populist movements on the far right or the far left.
Despite all that, Mr. Carney appeared undeterred with his plans on Friday after hosting what was billed as a summit meeting in Montreal with Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission and António Costa, president of the European Council.
Mr. Carney announced that the parties would conclude talks on making Canada an “associate member” of the European Union by June 2027. More important, those negotiations will also define that affiliation, which does not currently exist within the group.
Until Friday, Mr. Carney had shied away from using “associate member” or any other name to describe closer relations with Europe.
“We are working towards the deepest possible partnership — short of accession because of our geography — with Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member,” Mr. Carney said at a news conference after the meetings. “We’re leveraging and complementing each other’s strengths and building our resilience. Creating more choice, ensuring that we are not beholden to others. In fact, we are building a trans-Atlantic age between Canada and the European Union.”
Ms. von der Leyen, who first proposed the idea of associate membership earlier this year, said that “our association will be the closest, deepest and most unique of its kind.”
She added: “Our alliance should serve as a beacon for other democracies. At a time when international rules-based order is under pressure, we share a special responsibility to defend it.”
Germany and some other members of the European Union recently pushed back on creating the special membership category.
Negotiations will have to resolve that dissent and a wide array of issues between now and June if the deadline is to be met.
All three leaders spoke expansively, but not specifically, about increased trade and investment as well as greater scientific cooperation and cooperation in digital security. The agenda for the coming months includes establishing a system for bank payments between the continent and Canada that will bypass the current U.S. dominated system. Mr. Carney said that Canada’s membership will make it easier for young people from Canada and Europe to live throughout the continent and in Canada, and a background document talked about new fiber-optic links between Europe, Canada and Asia that avoid the United States. There are also broad commitments on security issues.
But a 12-page statement, signed by the three leaders, indicates that the vast majority of those promises require negotiations that, in some cases, haven’t begun.
On Thursday, Mr. Carney dismissed the potential of the current political and economic swings in Europe to disrupt the plan.
“One of Europe’s strengths is democracy, freedom and a core belief in the rule of law,” he said. “There will always be different governments, governments of different stripes in Europe.”
Earlier this year, President Trump threatened to impose further tariffs on Europe if it gave Canada any form of membership. Apparently alluding to that, Ms. von der Leyen said “this is a partnership not against anyone else, but for our common strength.”
While few mainstream political analysts or economists disagree with Mr. Carney’s aspiration to expand trade and political cooperation between Canada and the 27-nation bloc, there is considerable skepticism that it can significantly offset trade with the United States, which has been hurt by Mr. Trump’s tariff war against Canada.
Although a free trade agreement between Canada and the European Union was signed 10 years ago, only 10 percent of Canada’s exports go to Europe. By contrast, before Mr. Trump’s trade turmoil began last year, 70 percent of Canada’s exports went to the United States.
“There’s no particular reason why we should expect a huge amount of increased trade out of this,” said Christopher Ragan, an economist at McGill University who recently coauthored a paper on diversifying Canadian trade. He noted that Canada’s earlier free trade agreement with Europe, which was not been ratified by all of its members, “hasn’t had much of an impact.”
But Professor Ragan added that may not be the point.
“Mark Carney is playing a way bigger game than just trade diversification,” he said. “I think what he wants to do is to say: look, we want to prove to the U.S., but we also frankly just want to show to ourselves, that we’ve got other options.”
Jeanna Smialek contributed reporting from Brussels.
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