Canada may not want be the 51st US state, but it’s increasingly acting like the 28th state of the European Union — at least in spirit.
Since taking office last year, Prime Minister Mark Carney has made cozying up to Europe a core part of his strategy as he tries to break Canada’s economic and security dependence on the US.
He’s repeatedly described Canada as the “most European of non-European countries,” and is forging closer ties on defense, trade and diplomacy. Canadian Foreign Minister Anita Anand dropped by an EU foreign ministers’ meeting in Brussels yesterday.
The Canadian leader attended the European Political Community Summit in Armenia last week, and met the German chancellor in Norway in March. The coming weeks will see Carney in France for the Group of Seven, while Irish Prime Minister Micheál Martin has also invited him to visit.
Carney is on familiar turf. As Bank of England governor during the 2016 Brexit referendum, he made clear the economic risks of the UK quitting the EU.
A decade on, it was in Europe, at Davos in January, that he unveiled his middle powers strategy of working with like-minded nations to counter coercion by global giants.
Military spending is at the forefront of the burgeoning Canada-Europe relationship. Carney is pouring billions of dollars into defense, and he’s made it an explicit goal to reduce the amount spent on American-made equipment.
Canada is the only non-European country to join the EU’s military procurement program known as SAFE, and European firms are making a hard charge for submarine and fighter-jet contracts.
Yet Canada still has just one land border, and it happens to be with the world’s largest economy — about two-thirds of exports still flow south.
With the US-Mexico-Canada Agreement coming up for re-negotiation, Carney has to step carefully in making new best friends. — Brian Platt