By Achim Hurrelmann, Carleton University
March 21, 2025
In elementary school, my kids learned about four strategies to deal with a bully: walk away, ignore, talk it out, seek help. Canadian politicians, in their attempts to respond to Donald Trump’s persistent threats to Canada’s sovereignty, have already tried the first three strategies, by refusing to bow to Trump’s “economic coercion”, ignoring the ongoing “51st state” talk, and sitting down with US officials in fruitless meetings. The only option that remains is to seek help.
This seems to be the logic that explains the recent popularity of the idea of applying for membership in the European Union (EU). As Frédéric Mérand puts it in his well-argued Policy Options piece, the application for membership would be a symbolic “gesture of sovereignty” to “show Donald Trump that we are not alone”. And indeed, the sheer size of the EU market and the solid institutions of EU trade policy explain in part why the EU’s 27 member states have been less vulnerable than Canada to economic bullying from Washington.
There is no doubt that Canada is well-advised to strengthen relations with its European partners. This explains Prime Minister Mark Carney’s decision to take his first foreign trip to Paris and London (though not Brussels!), rather than Washington. However, in my view, seeking EU membership is not a good way to achieve this goal. First, I doubt that the benefits of EU membership, for Canada, would outweigh its costs. Second, I fear that applying for membership would be deeply divisive within Canada, and thus ultimately counterproductive to the goal of defending Canadian sovereignty.
While the EU has attempted to strengthen political aspects of integration over the past decades, for instance by establishing common policies on foreign affairs and border control, the main benefits of EU membership remain economic. For Canada, membership would mean becoming part of a Single Market of close to 500 million people. This would provide strong opportunities to expand Canada-EU trade. Compared to the existing Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), Single Market membership would eliminate not just all customs duties, but also the remaining quantitative restrictions and the economic barriers that derive from regulatory differences with respect to health, safety, environmental, or food standards.
However, joining the EU also has economic costs. The EU has established its Single Market through EU-level legislation that sets a common regulatory framework, combined with the requirement for member states to mutually recognize each other’s standards where differences remain. As Frédéric Mérand points out, states that want to join the EU are expected to adopt and implement this legislation (the acquis communautaire). In other words, incoming states must take over Europe’s regulatory framework and common policies, to which their businesses must adapt. For Canada, this would mean adopting new labour, environmental, and agricultural policies which are not of our own making – though we could influence their future development through the EU institutions.
Most importantly, as an EU member, Canada would become part of the EU’s Common Commercial Policy which governs external trade. This would greatly impact Canada’s trade relations, especially with the US. The Common Commercial Policy would supersede Canada’s existing trade agreements, including the existing North American trade agreement (USMCA/CUSMA), and would replace them with the trade agreements concluded by the EU. This would mean that, even if a cooperative and rule-abiding administration returned to power in Washington, Canada could no longer set its own trade rules with the country that, for reasons of geography alone, will remain our most important trading partner. I doubt this would be in Canada’s interest in the long term.
My second concern relates to internal controversies about the idea of EU membership. Frédéric Mérand refers to our joint research which shows the striking effects of partisanship on Canadians’ opinion of the EU, with supporters of the Conservative Party viewing the EU much less favourably than supporters of other parties. Recent surveys confirm these results; they show that Conservatives are least likely to support Canada’s EU membership, and most likely to be in favour of Canada joining the US. In this constellation, my fear is that an application for EU membership would turn the debate about Canada’s sovereignty into a partisan issue. It could indirectly legitimate Trump’s “51st state” talk by conveying the impression that we have no choice but to make a binary decision about which larger entity we want to join. This would undermine Canadians’ unity on the question of sovereignty, which is a critical factor in resisting Trump’s annexation fantasies.
Based on these considerations, I do not agree with the assertion that there is “no harm in applying” for membership even if the preferred outcome is another form of close association with the EU. If we are seeking closer relations short of membership, then it is counterproductive to approach this goal through the detour of a lengthy, complicated, and divisive accession process. Rather, we can build on the existing institutional framework of Canada-EU relations – CETA and the Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) – to address key obstacles and opportunities in deepening our relationship: How can we better support businesses in their match-making with European partners? How can we speed up processes of regulatory alignment under CETA? How can we encourage European investment in Canada, for instance in critical raw materials (an area when the EU is keen to diversify its supply chains)? How can Canadian provinces and EU member states be brought more fully on board? How can we enhance political collaboration, for instance through the “EU-Canada security and defence partnership” which is reportedly being negotiated between Ottawa and Brussels?
The premise of Frédéric Mérand’s argument has my full support: Canada should not face Donald Trump’s bullying tactics alone. Faced with his attacks on Canadian sovereignty, it makes sense for Canada to seek help from the EU and its member states – both by encouraging them to speak up more forcefully in defence of Canadian sovereignty and by strengthening our transatlantic relations to reduce dependency on the US. However, this does not require seeking membership in the EU. Concrete steps to deepen transatlantic relations with the EU can be taken far more quickly and effectively based our current bilateral agreements, which leave ample room for building an even closer partnership.
Comentarios