Canada Associate Member Of EU? Never Mind!

It appears that the Prince-Electors of the Holy Roman Empire European Commissioners, in a highly unusual move, have forced the Holy Roman Emperor President of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, to stop using the expression "Associate Member" of the EU in advance of the Montreal Canada-EU Summit, which begins today. Via Politico:

EU countries have dropped the idea of offering Canada "associate member" status in the 27-member bloc, opting instead for softer language promising "ever closer association" ahead of a landmark EU-Canada summit, according to the latest version of the draft statement, seen by POLITICO.

A group of countries including Germany, Greece and France all objected to mentioning associate membership in a joint EU-Canada statement to be issued in Montreal, the diplomats said.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen had originally proposed "associate membership" for Canada in her State of the European Union speech in September, catching some EU countries off-guard.

A previous draft of the joint statement had read that the EU and Canada would "work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of Associate Member that will reflect, through this even closer association, our common endeavour and cooperation towards our shared goals of prosperity, economic security and strategic autonomy."

In the final version, the text reads: "We will create an even closer association between Canada and the EU... and work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself."

Later in the statement, the language changes from "even closer" to "ever closer." The text still needs final approval. EU countries have a deadline of 6 p.m. to raise objections.

While countries disagree over the wording to describe the relationship, Brussels is not softening its offering to Canada of a vastly expanded partnership.

“The good news is it doesn’t matter about specific names or nomenclature," Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said Tuesday. "What matters is the difference that it will make to lives of Canadians."

Except that whnatever diffference there will actually be in the lives of Canadians remains completely undefined and has been kicked another year down the road. Conservative Canadian columnist Doug Lilley in the video embedded above includes a clip of Leyen's announcement of an EU "associate membership" for Canada in her September speech in Strasbourg, but what strikes me in the current context is how tepid the applause there actually was. This doesn't seem to have been a popular idea. Lilley also points out another problem that's also covered in CBC News:

Canada is facing a carbon tariff threat from the European Union within months as the economic bloc fully implements its Carbon Border Adjustment Mechanism (CBAM).

According to internal documents CBC News obtained through an access to information request, Canadian iron, steel and aluminum are not exempt from the carbon tariff even with Canada's national price on carbon and its decade-old trade deal with the European Union.

. . . The EU, however, is exempting countries like Switzerland, Norway, Iceland and soon the U.K. That's because their carbon pricing systems are linked or fall under Europe's carbon market, the EU Emissions Trading System.

The briefing note obtained by CBC News explicitly states that an "exemption … is not currently possible" for Canada because our carbon price is not linked to Europe's.

"In 2025, the EU carbon price is approximately $134 per tonne, compared to $95 per tonne [in Canada]," according to the briefing note.

The Carney government's recent energy accord with Alberta weakened Canada's carbon price further.

Lilley concludes by citing a previous column he'd written on "associate membership" in the EU:

What would Canada need to give up control over to get a deal that gave us the kind of deep trade access, deeper than a free-trade agreement, that Carney is seeking?

We don’t need to wonder. Such deals already exist.

The agreement with Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein requires those countries to follow European laws and regulations to gain access to the EU common market. In areas such as product standards, food safety, consumer protection, environmental rules and corporate law, EU standards take precedence over domestic law.

Norway, a supposedly free and independent country, must adopt most EU legislation, yet gets no vote. Its representatives can appear before committees and voice concerns, but they cannot vote on the rules that govern much of their lives.

There is no way that the EU would grant Canada similar common-market access without similar concessions.

. . . Carney has told Canadians that he walked away from the trade deal on offer from the U.S. last month to protect Canadian sovereignty. He said the Americans wanted to control which countries Canada could sign free-trade agreements with.

How would getting close to the EU, the way Norway has, protect our sovereignty?

We’d be giving up much of our decision-making power to nameless, faceless bureaucrats in Brussels and Strasbourg.

What we're beginning to see with Carney is promises on which he doesn't deliver. The first one was the threat to sue Stelco for laying off workers; two weeks ago, in response to questions from the press, Minister of Induistry Mélanie Joly said "It's a question of days" before the government took action, but so far, there's been nothing. Now, the EU is backing off "associate membership" whie contiinuing a policy of tariffs for Canada if Canada's carbon tax doesn't match its own.

Carney's main problem is his reluctance to negotiate in any serious way with the Trump administration after pulling the rug out from under his own negotiators in trade talks last August. The resulting US tariffs are doing major dmage to the Canadian economy. Carney has been deflecting this by promising increased trade with other countries, but it's looking like these deals are mostly just vague promises. At the same time, his honeymoon with Leyen has done her damage inside the EU:

It may look like a semantic distinction, but it amounts to an embarrassing political setback for [Leyen], who floated the idea of Canada becoming the EU's first associate member with great fanfare in September.

Arriving in Montreal for the summit, [Leyen] appeared determined to press ahead regardless.

Yet despite the wordplay, the final text leaves little doubt that the much-hyped format failed to win the support of European governments, whom [Leyen] did not consult before making her grand pitch to Canada.

Her own country, Germany, led the charge to remove the term, arguing that the substance of the new partnership should be defined before attaching a label with potential legal implications, rather than the other way round.

My own someehat cursory investigation into the EU decisionmaking process indicates that any such public disagreement among EU members is highly unusual -- in fact, Leyen's failure to consult with them apparently violated treaties:

According to Euronews, the idea had been discussed with Canada, but neither with EU member states nor within the Commission itself. ‘We don’t know what we are talking about,’ one diplomat told the outlet. Another was even more explicit: ‘It does not mean anything, it is not in the treaties.’

So Carney seems basically to be damaging Canada's economy while promising changes that will somehow make things better in the vague and distant future. We'll have to see how long he can keep this up.