Canada and the EU on Monday signed a defense and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over Washington’s reliability under US President Donald Trump.
The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President Antonio Costa.
“While NATO remains the cornerstone of our collective defense, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness ... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa told a news conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the Atlantic.”
Photo: Reuters
The pact seeks to bring Canada’s defense industry more closely into European efforts to revamp the domestic industrial base.
It opens the door for Ottawa to join common procurements under a 150 billion euros (US$174 billion) loan program backed by the EU’s central budget to boost rearmament.
It also paves the way for Canadian defense firms to tap into the scheme, although that requires the signing of a separate deal.
The EU said that the pact would deepen cooperation in areas including crisis management, defense industry collaboration, hybrid threats and military mobility.
The UK signed a similar defense partnership in May, and Australia and the EU announced they had started negotiating another one last week.
Carney said the deal with the EU would help Canada “deliver on our new requirements for capabilities more rapidly and more effectively.”
At a time of international instability, Canada is looking to diversify and strengthen its international partnerships, Carney added.
“We turn first and foremost to our most reliable allies, those who share our values of democracy, freedom and sovereignty,” he said.
Ottawa buys much of its military equipment from the US, but relations have soured under Trump, who has repeatedly called for Canada to become the 51st US state and announced tariffs on its exports.
The EU is Canada’s second-biggest commercial partner. Bilateral trade in goods was 75.6 billion euros last year, up 64 percent since 2017, when a free-trade agreement provisionally entered into force.
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