The President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, and the President of the European Council, António Costa, will travel this Thursday to Montreal to attend the summit between the European Union and Canada. In this meeting, both sides will seek to deepen their political, economic and security ties, and move forward in the design of an unprecedented form of cooperation that will allow Ottawa to get closer to the community bloc without becoming a member state.
The meeting, scheduled for October 29 and 30 and chaired by the Canadian Prime Minister, Mark Carney, aims to send a political message at a time of strong geopolitical instability and tensions on both sides of the Atlantic in their relationship with the United States.
As the main outcome, the announcement of a "Alliance for the Future" is expected, conceived to intensify bilateral collaboration in fields such as trade, critical raw materials, Artificial Intelligence (AI), energy or defense, among others.
"The EU and Canada have long been close friends, important partners and strategic allies. Our bond is strong and continues to strengthen," Costa emphasized before the trip, stressing that the meeting will allow the relationship to be taken "to the next level" through an alliance aimed at strengthening "political, economic and institutional" ties.
The EU High Representative for Foreign Policy, Kaja Kallas, will also take part in the summit, along with nine other European commissioners, who will hold meetings with their Canadian counterparts to promote concrete initiatives in their respective areas.
Toward a new form of association with Canada
One of the central axes will be the proposal launched by Von der Leyen in her State of the Union speech in September to study a form of "associated membership" that would offer Canada a relationship with the EU closer than that of any other external partner.
Community sources indicate that the goal is to build an association that comes closer to membership in the European Union "than anything else" proposed so far, although they insist that it would be an "association without accession," given that Canada does not contemplate formally joining the community club.
The scheme rests on three pillars: more intense coordination of public policies in areas such as climate, energy, or AI; greater involvement of Canada in European programs such as Erasmus+ and Horizon Europe; and a strengthening of institutional channels, with possible periodic meetings between governments and institutions on both sides of the Atlantic.
Even so, the same sources admit that this is still an "unexplored" field and that some member states are wary of the scope of this formula. For this reason, the immediate objective is to open a working process to define the contours of the possible partnership ahead of the next bilateral summit, scheduled for 2027.
From Brussels it is considered that, despite the reservations of certain countries, there is broad support among the Twenty-Seven to tighten ties with Ottawa, although the final name and the legal framework of the future partnership remain unresolved.
Trade, defense and critical raw materials
On the economic front, the EU and Canada aim to move toward a digital trade agreement that complements and expands cooperation beyond the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA). This pact, provisionally applied since 2017, has made it possible, according to the Commission, to increase the exchange of goods and services between the two partners by around 80% in less than ten years.
Likewise, progress is expected in an agreement between Canada and the European Investment Bank (EIB) to mobilize financing toward projects linked to critical raw materials, together with the updating of nuclear cooperation and the opening of European supercomputing infrastructures to Canadian researchers and companies.
In security and defense, the meeting will serve to continue the Security and Defense Partnership signed in June 2025 and to deepen cooperation in three additional areas: the Arctic, the fight against foreign information manipulation, and security risks associated with climate change.
European and Canadian leaders will also address their support for Ukraine in the face of the Russian invasion, the coordination of sanctions against Moscow and other shared international challenges. In addition, both sides will commission a study on the feasibility of exporting Canadian liquefied natural gas to Europe.