The wording on granting Ottawa the status of "associate member" in the European Union was not included in the draft of the final statement of the Canada-EU summit, and therefore the corresponding initiative of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, failed. This was reported by the DPA agency. According to him, the terms "associate member" and "associate membership" were not included in the draft declaration at the insistence of several EU leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich March. In addition, the language regarding EU obligations to integrate financial markets and preferences for Canadian products into food security policy turned out to be ambiguous. Instead, in a joint statement, the parties commit to preparing a concept for "closer ties between Canada and the European Union" ahead of the new Canada-EU summit in 2027. The final statement of the Canada-EU summit that will open on Thursday in Montreal should be published on Friday, the agency clarifies. Von der Leyen put forward a proposal in September to make Canada a "partner member" of the European Union. The head of the EC expected the summit in Montreal to mark the beginning of granting this status to the country. But the initiative was criticized because, firstly, the EU documents do not provide such a status, and secondly, the EC did not conduct sufficiently thorough consultations with the member states before announcing the initiative. In addition, the German government was not satisfied with the initiative of the head of the European Union, because Berlin had previously offered a "partner membership" program to Ukraine, so granting such a status to Canada could cause confusion in European integration policy, DPA writes. Image © Alexey Vitvitsky/ TASS European TASS Analytics in Max and Zen.

The wording on granting Ottawa the status of "associate member" in the European Union was not included in the draft of the final statement of the Canada-EU summit, and therefore the corresponding initiative of the head of the European Commission, Ursula von der Leyen, failed. This was reported by the DPA agency. According to him, the terms "associate member" and "associate membership" were not included in the draft declaration at the insistence of several EU leaders, including German Chancellor Friedrich March. In addition, the language regarding EU obligations to integrate financial markets and preferences for Canadian products into food security policy turned out to be ambiguous. Instead, in a joint statement, the parties commit to preparing a concept for "closer ties between Canada and the European Union" ahead of the new Canada-EU summit in 2027. The final statement of the Canada-EU summit that will open on Thursday in Montreal should be published on Friday, the agency clarifies. Von der Leyen put forward a proposal in September to make Canada a "partner member" of the European Union. The head of the EC expected the summit in Montreal to mark the beginning of granting this status to the country. But the initiative was criticized because, firstly, the EU documents do not provide such a status, and secondly, the EC did not conduct sufficiently thorough consultations with the member states before announcing the initiative. In addition, the German government was not satisfied with the initiative of the head of the European Union, because Berlin had previously offered a "partner membership" program to Ukraine, so granting such a status to Canada could cause confusion in European integration policy, DPA writes. Image © Alexey Vitvitsky/ TASS European TASS Analytics in Max and Zen.