EU and Canada launch Alliance for the Future with defence deal

Canada becomes the first non-European participant in the EU's Safe defence procurement scheme, and the EU says the model could extend to Japan, South Korea and Australia.

EU and Canadian leaders launched the Alliance for the Future at the 21st EU-Canada summit, a partnership the EU Council said includes cooperation on security. Canada became the first non-European participant in Safe, the EU's defence procurement scheme. Its firms already supply radios to Poland and helmets to Latvia.

What the deal means in law stays open. Canadian prime minister Mark Carney told reporters at the summit's closing press conference: "Today we move toward associate membership". But the EU is reported to have offered an ever-closer association rather than associate membership, less than the associate membership European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen had promised Canada. Germany, backed by Greece and others, objected to that term in September, citing legal uncertainty. Associate membership does not exist in EU structures, and has no binding definition in EU law.

The partnership matters beyond Canada's borders. For Philipp Lausberg, a senior policy analyst at the European Policy Centre, the deal could form a blueprint for deeper ties with Japan, South Korea and Australia. An EU spokesperson said the EU would be "open to replicating the same model with other close and trusted partners who are interested in deepening cooperation with us." Such a model, the spokesperson said, would let trusted partners develop secure supply chains, boost research and innovation, and coordinate economic security policies.

An EU official said other countries have already expressed interest in the Alliance for the Future. In June, according to Defence Finance Monitor, the United Kingdom, Japan and Korea had crossed the political threshold but had not yet reached Canada-style SAFE access. Lausberg told The Brussels Times the partnership could be "a test case and potentially a building block for a wider Economic Security Alliance".

The EU will develop the partnership in close coordination with member states and the European Parliament. The plan is due for the June 2027 summit. Lausberg sees a narrow window to lock the progress in, with a concrete roadmap ideally ready before France's presidential election in April and May.