April 9th, 2025
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Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 jolted the EU into a new enlargement wave now known as the “geopolitical enlargement”. Ukraine, Moldova, and Georgia, as well as the Western Balkans are inching closer to accession as the EU seeks unity and strength to contain Russian expansionism. In contrast to Russia’s long history of aggression in Eastern Europe, the Trump Administration’s threats to the sovereignty of Canada and Greenland (Denmark) might be only three-months old, but they have been so persistent that Canadians and Europeans have come to take them seriously enough to discuss increased security and trade cooperation to check the US. Frederic Mérand’s article in Policy Options has triggered a thoughtful debate about whether the process could lead to full EU membership for Canada. My take is that the moment calls for Canada to join the geopolitical enlargement wave with an application bid, even if the accession process might drag out or never end in full membership.
Nothing clarifies and speeds things up, both for the EU and for the potential candidate, as an existential threat to sovereignty and democracy from a hostile power. Canada suddenly finds itself in an eerily similar position as Ukraine was in early 2022. It faces a threat to its independence and sovereignty by a powerful neighbour who refuses to respect Canada’s insistence on its separate statehood. The geostrategic benefits of EU membership for Canada are thus clear. By joining the EU, Canada would deepen economic ties to its European NATO partners and increase its capacity to withstand economic and strategic hostility by the US. The benefits for the EU of Canada joining could also prove significant. The EU would be adding a member with a healthy consolidated democracy, one that could participate in rule-making from a position of reliable alignment with liberal democratic values. Canada also has a strong economy that would contribute rather than tax the budget. Just as Ukraine’s enthusiastic quest for membership reinvigorated support for EU integration across Europe, Canada’s bid could also boost EU legitimacy.
The biggest winner from a Canadian bid to join the EU would be the moribund international order. Enlargement to North America would make the EU a stronger counterweight than it is now to the emerging Russo-American alliance. The shocking American pivot to Russia that we are observing since Trump took office in January seems to seek a return to a world divided into great power spheres of influence populated by vassals. As Seva Gunitsky laid it out succinctly in a recent piece: “Trump’s approach to the international system is a strange blend of neo-feudal hierarchy with transactional politics guided by five principles: dominance of great powers, conditionality of alliances, weaponization of trade, irrelevance of institutions, and personalization of diplomacy.” Russia considers the EU an American vassal or a doomed dead-end project, but a transcontinental EU that includes Canada and safeguards its members’ sovereignty from both Russian and American diktat would prevent Trump and Putin from creating the neat maps they desire. Neither the US would be able to dominate the Americas, nor Russia would be able to re-establish its hold over half of Europe. Instead, the enlarged EU would continue to be a powerful independent pole committed to international law and the territorial integrity norm.
This course is not without pitfalls, though. Other contributions in this series discuss the economic, social, and political obstacles to Canada’s EU accession, but even a geostrategic move towards membership can be complicated. The current pivot by the US administration towards autocracies and territorial expansionism might prove to be short-lived, an idiosyncratic predilection of President Trump, rather than a durable foreign policy realignment. What if in a few short years, while Canada is working out its complex EU accession, a new Democratic American administration corrects course and seeks forgiveness from its European and Canadian allies? Would Canada then scrap its EU bid and return to renegotiate NAFTA or even a currency union with the US, the third option in Kurt Hübner’s contribution? The long-term implications of a Canadian EU membership must be thought through carefully. From today’s vantage point, however, a Canadian bid for EU accession would benefit democracy and the international order, while undermining anachronistic plans to plunge the world back into an Orwellian rendering of competing imperial blocks, so we need to give it serious consideration.
