Relations between Canada and the United States are undergoing strong pressure – and this has commentators offering an improbable – but not impossible – solution.
What if Canada joined the European Union?
Even before US President Donald Trump threatens Canadians of “economic force” if they did not want to become a “51st state”, Stanley Pignal, columnist with The Economist,, launched the idea Country change teams.
“It turns out that” he wrote, “Europe and Canada could be on the market for improved alliances.”
The Pigal Chronicle in early January was followed by a small wave of online excitement: a former spokesperson for the Canada Embassy in Paris approved the ideaas did A chief of the pro-EU movement of Great Britain. Even A former German Foreign Affairs seemed to jump on board.
“Joke, diatribe, real proposal? It’s hard to say,” Read a column In Montreal Daily the press. “”[But] With an American president now hostile in Canada, a rapprochement with Europe would be far from being foolish. “”
But could that really happen?
Is it possible to join the EU?
Article 49 of the Treaty on the European Union opens its membership to “any European State which respects and undertakes to promote human dignity, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and respect for the rights of ‘Man, including the rights of people belonging to minorities “.
What he does not do is define Europe.
“What constitutes a European country is left to political decision -making,” said Dimitrios Argyroulis, a researcher at the Institute of European Studies at the Free University of Brussels in Belgium.
A country outside Europe has tried to join only once before. In 1987, Morocco was rejected on the basis that it was not a “European country”.
But Canada can be different. In his column, Pigal is based on the idea that Canadians are “honorary Europeans” due to their “shared values” – something The two governments have often highlighted.
Canadians, they say, are generally likely to support the control of firearms, to oppose the death penalty and to support a strong providence state which regulates the free market – a bit like Europeans.
Canadian political and legal institutions are also modeled in the European previous More than half of Canadians identify as European in ancestry.
There could also be advantages for both parties to a closer union. As Pigal suggests, Canada could offer the EU access to large reserves of much rarer strategic resources on the continent, such as rare earth minerals and fossil fuels.
Canada, on the other hand, could benefit from access to the great and qualified labor market in Europe – and reduce its dependence on the United States and its volatile policy.
“Ottawa must prepare for a world where Washington is less reliable,” said Teona Lavrelashvili, a stock market visit to the Martens Center, an EU thinking group in Brussels. “Strengthening commitment with Europe … is not only strategic, but essential.”
Could this really happen?
It is therefore legally possible, and even has advantages – but is it really likely?
Do not hold your breath.
“This will not happen,” said Steven Blockmans, principal member of the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels.
The European Union has already A long waiting list: 10 candidates, some, such as Bosnia and Herzegovina, who have been waiting for decades.
“Think of the optics,” said Maria Garcia, lecturer in politics at Bath University in England. “If you have very delayed applications … With these eastern countries which are really in Europe, can you really open it to countries outside?”
A recent survey From the Martens Center discovered that 38% of EU residents want more members – and more than 80% have said that they should come from Europe.
While Europe adds more members, it also becomes more difficult to find an agreement between them on which should be let in. These decisions – as well as policies on delicate subjects such as security and immigration – are taken by consensus.
“They have trouble keeping things together,” said Ruben Zaiotti, director of Jean Monnet Union European Union Center of Excellence at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “So, imagine a more in -depth expansion – beyond those already aligned – I don’t see enough energy to achieve this goal, or even to start the process.”
No more cooperation?
More likely than complete membership for Canada, said Zaiotti, is “an advanced form of cooperation”.
According to Michael Emerson, former EU ambassador to Russia at the Center for European Policy Studies in Brussels, which could take the form of a “maximum deepening of the relationship on all accounts: politics, economic, cultural and security”.
Or the EU could try to create new alliances.
“We could imagine a … multilateral grouping loose similar, without the United States,” wrote Emerson in an email. “Then, all of democratic Europe, as well as the rest of the non -American OECD, could develop a collective diplomatic position, affirming” our “model of an enlightened West.”
The EU already has a certain capacity to establish this type of relationship. It is Concept of “European district” It allowed him to conclude resource sharing partnerships with Armenia and Tunisia which go beyond typical trade agreements.
Some states, such as Norway, are members of the European Economic Area, a free trade block, without being members of the EU. Others are full members but not part of the Schengen agreement, which authorizes travel without visa, or the euro zone, which shares a currency and a central bank.
Canada already participates in Horizon EuropeA research subsidy program funded by the EU worth more than $ 140 billion, alongside other non-European states such as New Zealand.
“He reports a new chapter of our relationship with the EU,” said François-Philippe Champagne, Minister of Sciences of Canada, when the agreement was signed last year.
Politicians approached subjects such as water bombers, AI and the environment over 24 hours in Newfoundland in Newfoundland and Labrador, but politicians insist on international agreements on things like hydrogen And minerals will bring the most local advantages. Peter Cowan of the CBC explains.
The president of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen,, on the other hand, has undermined any words on the advantages for Europe. Canada is “the only country in the Western hemisphere with all the raw materials necessary for lithium batteries,” she said-a key strategic resource while Europe is going to green technology. “So I would say it’s a perfect match.”
In this way, at least, European leaders seem to be open to the widening of the definition of Europe – creating “a European onion, instead of a European Union”, as Blockmans says.
“If there is a change in EU thought, it would probably be towards deepening [these] Strategic partnerships rather than reinventing the EU as a geographically unlimited alliance, “said Lavrelashvili.
You don’t choose your friends
Of course, “it will always be very difficult for Canada … to separate from America,” said Garcia.
His biggest trading partner cannot be replaced overnight – the defense of the Canadian (or European) territory would not be easy without American support.
“Europe does not fully replace the United States,” said Lavrelashvili.
It is if Canadians want a substitute.
Robert Finbow, deputy director of the Jean Monnet Center in Dalhousie, said that the provinces of Canada rarely agree on EU priorities such as climate or agricultural policy – with some Apparently reluctant to challenge Trump in a commercial dispute.
Canadian companies, while waiting “have always relied on this loan [American] Connection to profitability and has rarely taken alternative partners quite seriously, “he said.
There is also the risk that any decision to deepen links with Europe can cause greater American attack.
“It would increase their feeling that the EU is an antagonist and an adversary, not an ally,” said Argyroulis. “Simply imagine the feeling of these people obsessed with border control to realize that they could share borders with the European Union.”
There is also another problem. If Canada turned to Europe to escape Trump style policy, it could barked the bad tree.
Later this month, there will be elections in Germany, a member state of the key, where the far right, Elon Musk-Tended Alternative for Germany (AFD) has been Move in the polls.
The Germans only join the voters Italy,, Austria,, Belgium,, The Czech Republic,, Hungary,, Finland,, Poland,, Norway,, The Netherlands And FranceWho has granted Trump -style politicians, politicians or key positions in government in recent years.
“Canada can no longer take its links with Europe for granted,” said Lavrelashvili.
To say, Canadians and Europe can have shared values - but in this new political era, Europe and Trump can still share more values.
