Canada already has a preferential trade deal with the EU in the form of the 2016 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement<\/a> (Ceta). This type of free-trade agreement is typical of the sort of legal instrument used by the EU to manage relations with its main international partners. <\/p>\n But one way in which the EU could upgrade Ottawa\u2019s relations with Brussels would be to look to the template of the \u201cassociation agreements\u201d the EU uses to bring neighbouring countries into closer alignment with its policies and programmes. <\/p>\n These association agreements have been a stepping stone to full EU membership for countries like Greece and Portugal. Current candidates for EU accession, including Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova, also all have association agreements<\/a> with the EU that facilitate the process by which they meet the rules and standards required for EU membership.<\/p>\n Other countries like Norway and Iceland have rejected full EU membership. But their association agreement with the EU \u2013 the European Economic Area<\/a> (EEA) agreement \u2013 nonetheless grants them access to the European single market in return for alignment with EU regulations.<\/p>\n Ottawa is not about to engage in a process of regulatory alignment with the EU as if it were preparing for membership. EU law is clear that only \u201cEuropean\u201d states can join the bloc<\/a>. Currently, Canada\u2019s trade with the US<\/a> also vastly outstrips its trade with the EU<\/a>. <\/p>\n Weakening its position relative to its primary market would have much the same effect for Canada as Brexit had for the UK, albeit by aligning with the EU rather than seeking autonomy from it. Nonetheless, Brexit may be instructive here. <\/p>\n Driven by the Boris Johnson administration\u2019s desire for a trade deal with the EU modelled on Ceta, the 2021 EU-UK Trade and Cooperation Agreement<\/a> (TCA) is substantively a preferential trade deal cloaked in the legal form of an association agreement. <\/p>\n For the EU, this allows its future relationship with the UK to evolve over time. Enclosing Ceta within the legal wrapper of an association agreement could likewise allow Canada and the EU to strengthen their areas of non-trade cooperation without EU membership and regulatory alignment.<\/p>\n The really surprising aspect of von der Leyen\u2019s offer is the idea that Canada would be the EU\u2019s \u201cfirst\u201d<\/a> associate member, implying a new legal category. This would be unusual for a highly legalistic bureaucracy that has long preferred the routine application of familiar legal formats. <\/p>\n That said, the proposal is not entirely new. The idea of associate membership gained some traction in the early 2000s around a proposed replacement of the EU\u2019s founding treaties with a single treaty, creating a \u201cConstitution for Europe\u201d. <\/p>\nFirst associate member<\/h2>\n
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