The European Union and Canada signed an agreement in Brussels on Monday to strengthen their cooperation in defense and commerce, in a context of uncertainty on the reliability of the United States under the chairmanship of Donald Trump.
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“This is the beginning of a new chapter in a long -standing friendship between Europe and Canada,” assured the president of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen, alongside Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney.
AFP
The latter explained to tackle the cooperation of Canada with its “most reliable allies, those who share our values”, without mentioning recent tensions with Trump America.
This agreement aims in particular to associate the Canadian defense industry more closely with the efforts made by Europe to reorganize its industrial base.
Ultimately, it could allow Ottawa to participate in common purchases as part of a 150 billion euros loan program recently approved by the EU to stimulate the reset of the 27.
AFP
It also opens the way to the participation of Canadian companies in this program, even if this will require the signing of a separate agreement.
Great Britain signed a similar defense partnership in May, and Australia and the EU announced last week that they had started negotiations for another partnership.
The signature comes on the eve of a NATO summit in The Hague during which the Allies, including Canada and 23 of the 27 EU countries, must approve an increased security expenditure target to reach at least 5 % of GDP in 2035, in order to deal with the Russian threat in particular.
This commitment is considered essential to satisfy Donald Trump, who had threatened to no longer protect “bad payers”.
AFP
Ottawa, who spent 1.4 % of his GDP for Defense in 2024, buys a large part of his military equipment in the United States.
But relations have deteriorated under Trump, who has repeatedly asked that Canada becomes the 51st American state.
Canada also recently welcomed a G7 summit, marked by the early departure of the White House tenant and the lack of a joint declaration denounced the “Russian attack” in Ukraine, unlike previous years when Joe Biden was at the head of the United States.
The EU is Canada’s second trading partner. The bilateral trade in goods represented 75.6 billion euros in 2024, an increase of 64 % since 2017, the year of the provisional entry into a free trade agreement, CETA.
