Carney's Canada Draws Closer to European Union • FRANCE 24 English

Sep 16, 2026 | With a US president who talks of making Canada the 51st state…Its leader in Europe where it’s not quite the EU's 28th state on offer but something the president of the European Commission is calling ‘associate membership’. We’ll ask what that means, how it differs from the close status afforded to the likes of Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and the UK which Carney’s also visiting ahead of his own Strasbourg speech Thursday before the European Parliament.

What are Canada’s options? What are Europe’s options as both the US and Russia covet the Arctic? How closer can they really get when already ten EU nations - including France and Italy - have yet to ratify the CETA free trade agreement that’s provisionally in effect with Ottawa?

The French - who have their own challenges with the far-right favourite to win next May’s presidential elections - will conclude this Canadian cycle when Emmanuel Macron hosts Carney in the tiny North Atlantic overseas territory of Saint Pierre and Miquelon. Ahead of UN week in New York, a simple question: do Europeans take on the United States head on like Canada or massage relations with the world's biggest superpower