On 16 September 2026, Ursula von der Leyen used her annual State of the Union address to make an unusual proposition. With Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney sitting in the European Parliament, the President of the European Commission announced that she wanted to open the door for Canada to become the first associate member of the European Union.
There is, at present, no such status in European Union law and that is precisely why the announcement matters, since it underscores a profound shift in how middle powers are positioning themselves for the emerging international order.
Von der Leyen was not inviting Canada to join the European Union but giving political form to a relationship that has already moved well beyond conventional trade cooperation. Her proposal was to move beyond the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and build what she called an "alliance for the future", creating a common space for prosperity and economic security grounded in deeper cooperation on advanced manufacturing, defence-industrial integration, energy, critical minerals, batteries, artificial intelligence, quantum technologies, cybersecurity and the Arctic. Canadian and European capabilities are particularly complementary in areas where concentrated dependence has become a source of strategic exposure.
The timing is significant given that, immediately before introducing Canada, von der Leyen acknowledged her approach within a much broader reassessment of Europe's position in the international order. Europe, she argued, would continue to defend the rules-based system, but could "no longer rely on it as the only way to secure our interests", nor assume that its rules would shield the Union from the threats it now faces. Her conclusion followed, implying that Europe must "urgently reimagine its partnerships" and build "global coalitions for our resilience and democracies".
Sovereignty through collective resilience.
Carney developed the argument further when he addressed the European Parliament on September 17th.
His starting point was that the nature of sovereignty itself has changed. Yet beneath the complexity of modern interdependence lies an enduring strategic reality where food, energy and defence remain indispensable foundations of state resilience, but they are no longer sufficient in an international system where vulnerability increasingly extends across technology, finance, supply chains and critical infrastructure. Modern sovereignty increasingly depends on secure access to semiconductors, critical minerals, payment systems, clean-energy technologies, vaccines and space-based communications.
Neither Canada nor Europe possesses all these capabilities independently. The importance lies in their complementarity.
While Europe brings the scale of its own market, a powerful research and manufacturing base, considerable influence over international rules and standards, and a defence industry now undergoing significant expansion, Canada complements these strengths with abundant energy resources, vast reserves of critical minerals, established capabilities in space, quantum technologies, substantial financial resources and a strategic Arctic position linking the Atlantic and Pacific.
When it comes to their needs, Europe requires reliable access to the energy and critical minerals on which its industry, technology and defence increasingly depend. Canada, in turn, needs stronger technological partnerships, greater processing capacity and access to alternative markets as it seeks to reduce its economic dependence on the United States.
At a more concrete level, this would extend to future trading in critical minerals. Canada holds deposits of more than 34 critical minerals, while Europe depends on secure supplies to sustain its technological, energy and defence industries. Rather than limiting the relationship to European purchases of Canadian resources, Carney envisaged combining Canadian supply with European processing and industrial capacity to develop value chains between trusted partners. A similar approach can be seen in energy and technology, where Canadian energy resources and expertise in artificial intelligence could complement European clean-energy technologies, market scale and regulatory influence.
Defence has also become an important part of this closer relationship. Canada and the European Union signed a Security and Defence Partnership in June 2025, followed by Canada becoming the first non-European country to participate in Security Action for Europe (SAFE), the European Union instrument supporting common defence procurement and the development of its defence industrial base. Formally concluded by the Council in June 2026, the agreement brings Canadian involvement into an area previously centred on European defence and shows how cooperation between the two is acquiring an increasingly strategic dimension.
The middle-power dilemma and its solution through variable geometry.
Carney had made the argument nine months earlier at the World Economic Forum in Davos. The UN, the WTO and NATO remain central to international cooperation, but for middle powers their existence is no longer a sufficient guarantee against the pressures of an increasingly fragmented international system. "If you are not at the table, you are on the menu", Carney warned.
The phrase points to a basic asymmetry of power. Great powers can draw on the size of their markets, military capabilities, technological infrastructure and financial influence to impose significant costs on other states. In contrast, middle powers may be sovereign on paper, yet still find their choices constrained by dependence on a more powerful partner. Carney's alternative was to point towards a more flexible way of managing power and dependence through what is known as variable geometry.
The idea has deep roots in European integration, where variable geometry has long described forms of differentiated integration in which states participate in different projects under divergent conditions, as illustrated by the euro and Schengen. Applied internationally, however, it acquires a broader significance. Cooperation can be organised without requiring complete geopolitical alignment.
This is increasingly visible in Europe's external relationships with Canada, India, Australia, Mercosur and Indonesia. The EU is weaving a network of partnerships with like-minded countries and economies across different regions and policy areas where partners do not share identical interests or geopolitical outlooks, nor are they expected to. What matters is the accumulation of areas in which their interests converge. Middle power by middle power, Europe is building a web of economic, technological and security relationships that expands the number of partners on which it can rely.
Variable geometry therefore allows cooperation without demanding allegiance. India can preserve its strategic autonomy, Australia its alliance with the United States, Brazil its position within BRICS and Canada its deep integration with North America while each develops a closer relationship with Europe.
Within this broader realignment, Europe occupies a particularly complex position in the US-China rivalry. Washington and Beijing do not carry the same weight in European strategy. NATO, American military power and decades of cooperation bind Europe closely to the US. Yet Europe still depends on China for critical minerals, batteries and key industrial inputs, while relying heavily on the US for defence and parts of its technological infrastructure. The question is how much freedom Europe can preserve when so much of what it needs for its security and economy still depends on decisions made in these external centres of power.
Strategic autonomy is, at heart, about that freedom. Europe can remain a close American ally while giving itself more room to act when priorities diverge, continue trading with China while reducing dependence in sensitive sectors, and build stronger ties with Canada, India and Australia wherever their interests coincide.
Seen in this light, today's geopolitical rivalry looks rather different from the bipolarity of the Cold War. Competition between the US and China is becoming a defining feature of the international order, but the rest of the world is hardly falling neatly into two camps. Nor is a third bloc emerging in their place. Canada is not trading its relationship with the US for Europe, just as India and Australia have little interest in abandoning their existing partnerships. Instead, middle powers are becoming more reluctant to place too much of their security or prosperity in the hands of any single partner. They are spreading their bets and cultivating relationships across competing centres of power.
The post-war order, underwritten to a large extent by American power, remains indispensable. What has weakened is the assumption that it can, on its own, insulate middle powers from geopolitical pressure. This gives them every reason to defend multilateralism while building alternatives around it. Broader economic, technological and security ties provide greater strategic latitude without demanding self-sufficiency or exclusive alignment. The result is an international order that is becoming more fluid, with cooperation increasingly organised around converging interests rather than fixed blocs.
Canada may prove to be only the beginning. European Parliament President Roberta Metsola has already pointed to Australia and New Zealand as countries that could eventually follow Canada towards a form of EU associate membership. If that possibility develops further, its significance would extend well beyond the EU-Canada relationship. Europe would be testing a new outer circle of European cooperation, one capable of bringing strategically important countries closer to the Union without requiring either full membership or uniform geopolitical alignment. In a more fragmented international system, such arrangements could give Europe a way to build influence beyond its borders while offering middle powers something they increasingly value themselves, more partners, more options and less dependence on any single centre of power.