A 'protective canopy' against new storms

Mark Carney and Ursula von der Leyen unveiled the Alliance for the Future while speaking to reporters in Montreal on Friday, as they concluded their two-day summit. The new Canada EU alliance groups like-minded nations and is open to other countries joining. The two leaders said the deepest possible partnership between Canada and the 27-member bloc had the potential to offer unprecedented stability and opportunity.

Carney framed the project as a response to pressures he said have unsettled societies, citing the climate emergency, the erosion of democratic norms and the weaponization of trade.

He described the alliance as a protective canopy under which citizens can thrive, a framing that echoed his argument that climate, democratic and trade pressures now arrive together rather than separately.

Trade, Ukraine and concrete commitments

The summit also produced a pledge on Ukraine. Canada agreed to contribute to a €90bn support loan for Ukraine, announced alongside the alliance itself.

Von der Leyen, for her part, tied the case for closer integration to the cost of living. She said that when trade becomes a tool of economic pressure, families pay the price, from the supermarket shelf to the cost of a new car. She added that suppliers once trusted for energy, critical minerals or semiconductors are increasingly turned into instruments of pressure.

Leaders said future discussions under the partnership would deliver:

• •a more integrated market worth tens of billions of dollars
• •reduced trade and travel restrictions between Canada and the EU
• •new educational opportunities on both sides

Carney, speaking earlier in the day, said the alliance could mean more competition and more choice, and could help supply chains withstand shocks together.

AI sovereignty and supercomputing access

The technology and defence files figured in Carney's remarks. He has repeatedly raised the concern that Canada's defence technologies could be at the whim of political actors or companies with opposing interests. A report last week that Elon Musk throttled the speeds of Starlink and Starshield over Ukraine in mid-October, severely disrupting Ukrainian military and defense operations, has given that concern a concrete example; Musk, a dual Canadian citizen, is a critic of Canada's governing Liberal party.

Carney pointed to a planned merger between the Canadian artificial intelligence company Cohere Inc and Germany's Aleph Alpha GmbH as a step toward lessening reliance on American AI giants. The merged company will have dual headquarters in Berlin and Toronto. The federal government has also announced a stake in Cohere worth up to C$1.6bn.

That comment, made Thursday, was paired with a Friday agreement that brings Canada into Europe's supercomputing network. The deal gives Canadians access to European machines to train AI models.

Associate membership: ambition and friction

The leaders again raised the prospect of Canada becoming an associate member of the EU. Von der Leyen, who first floated the term, and Carney both again referred to associate membership at the summit. She called it uncharted territory and said the two sides have the ambition, trust and creativity to shape it together, adding that the partnership is not against anyone else but for common strength. A clearer scope of Canada's associate membership role is expected at a 2027 summit.

European Council president Antonio Costa called Canada "by far the most European of the non-European countries" and said the two sides would pursue "the most closer, the most deepest, the most stronger association ever between European Union and a non-European country".

The idea has met resistance inside the bloc, however:

• •some EU members bristled at Canada receiving a designation they described as legally meaningless, fearing it could confuse other nations seeking membership
• •Germany and other states had worked behind the scenes to remove the phrase associate membership from a draft of the summit statement

The summit also caused friction at home. Quebec's separatist Parti Québécois was recently elected to a minority government, and premier Paul St-Pierre Plamondon skipped the event after Ottawa refused to let him speak publicly at it. On social media he mocked the idea that being allowed to serve shrimp cocktails at a reception counts as sufficient influence, and said a head-table invitation amounted to asking Quebec to get back in line, in exchange for better seats to watch the party.