Is Canada's future European?

Frequency podcast network. Stories that matter. Podcasts that resonate. Amid what the Prime Minister called a ferocious storm, Mark Carney believes Canada's newly proposed associate membership in the European Union would help protect its sovereignty. Canada welcomes this ambition. I will tell you polling shows that an overwhelming majority

of Canadians support much closer ties with Europe. With Europe in an address to European Parliament, Carney said an emerging new alliance between the territories would shield both Europeans and Canadians from being dominated. But he stopped short of endorsing the associate membership described by the president of the Eves executive arm Ursula von der Leyen a day earlier, a designation with no legal framework as it doesn't currently exist. It would also be up to European states whether

Ronderlian's proposal goes ahead, and some nations may not be inclined to give our country special status, especially if it undermines their own economies, posing significant obstacles to an enhanced Canada-EU partnership.

I'm Karen Seolin, and today on The Big Story, I'm speaking with Kurt Hübner, Professor in the European Studies Department at the University of British Columbia to discuss what's still uncertain, and why talk of an associate membership is likely just that.

I'll talk. Kurt, welcome to The Big Story. It's a pleasure to have you on. Thanks for having me.

Could you just reflect for a moment? I suppose on the spectre of Prime Minister Carney being the first foreign head of government to attend the State of the EU address, the most politically significant moment on the calendar than going on to address the European Parliament. Just how symbolically important

was that for Mark Carney as well as for Canada? Yeah, I think so. It was really a very highly appreciated gesture to invite Prime Minister Carney to join the address, the state of the European address, the annual one, and also to talk in front of the European Parliament. So, it speaks a bit about, on the one side, the kind of admiration of, let us say, the

broad spectrum of political agents in Europe towards Canada. And it's also a signal, so to say, to invite him having dear in this very prominent way, a signal towards the United States of America. You know, it tells us something about an emerging strategy of the European Union to

join up with others and obviously Canada is seen as an ideal candidate. Also, I should add, to the fact that I think so in most quarters of the member states of the European Union, people, voters, but also politicians, they're looking full of admiration that Canada is besides China, the only relevant country that is was willing to object those

attacks of President Trump. And you know, it's a scene as a kind of, I don't want to say model, but something that is really great, a little of admiration put it this way, a lot of political capital also that now Mark Carney is using for the benefit of Canada.

Yeah, I certainly have questions about how he is using his political capital. But I do wonder, the headline this week was the president of the European Commission in her state of the EU address, offering Canada such a deep connection to become the EU's first associate member as she coined it.

What is the practical significance of that? Yeah, I mean, in the meantime, we know, I think so, I hope so, that we know that everybody knows that this term associate member is actually, you can't forget about it. This was my first response when I read about it in the voice of the journal on the weekend

a couple of days ago, that there is a rumor that you will offer something like this. I was immediately looking at myself, so I'm teaching now European decoration

doing quite a lot in this area and never heard this as a valid legal term. And indeed it is not. At the same time, it's also a kind of ping pong game,

I think, so we can observe. And also often the line was using the term at her address at the State of Union. And at least nominally, Mark Carney was taking it up.

And by then he get more concrete. So there is no associate membership in the making. We have to be realistic. And Mark Carney used his presentation

in front of the European parliament to add some flavor to be more concrete, a bit more concrete for the dismay, because it's pretty clear the Ocelot-Fender line

will never have any kind of opportunity, I'm pretty sure about that, to make an associate membership happen. There is no appetite on the side of European member states

to go into this direction. The German representative as a federal European Union made it completely clear that Germany would not support something like this.

There's a lot of strategic element, nothing to this Canada because the EU is in a mess regarding other enlargement candidate applications. Should the EU, for example,

give some express kind of quick access to Ukraine. There's all those kinds of debates. And now Canada, out of sight, getting another special status,

according to Osteroven the Line. This would not work with the member states. Yeah, what certainly struck me more than how Donald Trump would react to all this,

which we'll talk about in a moment, was how the member states would react to it. Because, I mean, keep in mind, 10 European nations have yet to ratify

the existing Canada-Europe trade agreement, despite it having been signed in 2016. And these are not just any countries like France, Italy, Ireland, they are among them.

And so it's hard to imagine that all of a sudden, suddenly all 27 member states would welcome Canada with open arms in this kind of way. Yeah, and again, this holds for the status

of an associate member. It may not be so relevant for other ideas that have brought forward by Mark Carney. But you're correct, coming back to CEDAM, the Comprehensive Trade Agreement.

10 countries have not ratified it. The main elements when it comes to trade of good services, a lot of other of those chapters have not been any problem from all of those 27 countries. It's particularly the so-called state investor dispute mechanism chapter that deals with