Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has defended Ottawa’s growing relationship with the European Union, saying Canada will not be pressured into abandoning closer ties with the bloc, POLITICO reports.
“Canada’s warming relationship with the EU ‘is a positive’ process,” Carney said, responding to US President Donald Trump’s threat to impose “serious tariffs” on the EU if Canada becomes an associate member of the bloc.
The proposal was put forward by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen in her State of the Union address on September 16.
“This alliance is a positive process. That’s my response to the American president,” Carney told reporters at a press conference following his speech to the European Parliament.
He added that “a stronger, more resilient Canada would be a more effective partner for the United States.”
“Canadians are united that nobody is going to tell us what language to speak,” Carney said, referring to reports that the White House had sought to interfere with the French language spoken in Quebec. “No one is going to dictate our culture, or with whom we can strike agreements.”
Von der Leyen’s proposal to make Canada the EU’s first “associate member” reportedly caught several European capitals and Ottawa by surprise.
Carney endorsed the idea in his European Parliament speech, praising von der Leyen for “opening the door to Canada becoming the EU’s first associate member” and saying he welcomed the ambition.
Asked whether he preferred the terms “Alliance for the Future” or “associate membership” for the potential new relationship, Carney played down the distinction.
“President von der Leyen used both terms, alliance for the future and associate membership. The nomenclature is a question for Europe; what terms they use,” he said. “What matters is the substance. What are we actually building together.”
By Vafa Guliyeva
