The two-day EU-Canada summit<\/a> culminated on October 30 with the launch of a so-called \u201cAlliance for the Future\u201d. That compromise formula of association, rather than associate membership \u2013 which specifically ruled out full membership \u2013 was necessary because of internal disagreements in the EU. <\/p>\n In September, Von der Leyen, offered<\/a> Canada the chance to become the EU\u2019s first \u201cassociate member\u201d. But Germany, backed by Greece and others, objected to the term<\/a>, worried about legal uncertainty and the expectations it might raise in other countries. <\/p>\n The Canadian prime minister, Mark Carney, used it anyway<\/a> at the Montreal summit\u2019s closing press conference: \u201cToday we move toward associate membership for Canada and we launch a new alliance for the future.\u201d<\/p>\n Carney has been unusually explicit about what he believes. In his view, the future belongs to purpose-built coalitions organised around specific interests, and the successful ones among them will grow by attracting new members.<\/p>\n The Montreal summit fits that description. Ottawa\u2019s official account<\/a> presents the EU-Canada Alliance for the Future as drawing on \u201ca variable geometry of like-minded nations\u201d. According to an EU official<\/a>, other countries have already expressed interest. <\/p>\n Earlier middle-power coalitions, such as the 1997 Ottawa Convention<\/a> banning anti-personnel landmines, which 194 countries have ratified, have shown<\/a> that middle powers can build issue-specific leverage when a clear objective, a committed coalition and an institutional strategy line up.<\/p>\n Can the bilateral Alliance for the Future be the nucleus around which a new middle-power coalition is built? On the one hand, a stronger Canada-EU partnership could give middle-power cooperation more resources and political weight<\/a>. On the other hand, the closer Ottawa and Brussels move towards each other, the harder it may be to bring in other middle powers, such as India and Brazil. <\/p>\n The partnership\u2019s ability to realise the summit\u2019s aspirations<\/a> \u2013 from digital trade to cooperation on critical resources and supercomputing \u2013 is yet to be tested.<\/p>\n The track record of past efforts implies five tests to judge whether Ottawa and Brussels are likely to succeed in leading a wider coalition of middle powers into a new international order.<\/p>\n First, leadership costs money. In Montreal, Canada signalled<\/a> its \u201cintention to join\u201d the EU\u2019s \u20ac90 billion (\u00a375 billion) Ukraine support loan. That will spread an existing burden<\/a> rather than adding new money. The test is whether Ottawa and Brussels can mobilise new resources, not just share existing burdens.<\/p>\n Second, any middle-power coalition will need to build defence capabilities that can be sustained. Canada is the first non-European participant<\/a> in Security Action for Europe (Safe)<\/a>, the EU\u2019s defence procurement scheme, and Canadian firms have won contracts<\/a> to supply radios to Poland and helmets to Latvia. <\/p>\n But the joint statement merely \u201ctakes note\u201d of Carney\u2019s proposed Defence, Security and Resilience Bank<\/a>, an international financial institution which would pool funds to allow it to offer loans for defence procurement for allies. This sort of thing sounds easy at summits. It gets harder once the location of headquarters, the procurement rules and memberships are at stake.<\/p>\n Third, while military defence is important, economic defence increasingly matters as well. Any middle-power coalition will need to make economic coercion harder. The EU already has an Anti-Coercion Instrument<\/a> to respond to economic pressure from bigger powers against itself or its member states, but it does not extend the same protection to Canada. <\/p>\n The closest to this in the Montreal summit statement<\/a> is a joint commitment to limit the \u201cnegative effects\u201d of each side\u2019s economic security measures on the other. That is a promise of restraint between partners, not of joint defence against a third party \u2013 even though US president Donald Trump threatened tariffs<\/a> on Europe if he judged associate membership for Canada to be a \u201chostile act\u201d.<\/p>\n Fourth, whatever the exact vision that the EU and Canada have in mind, it needs to be built in a way that it can handle disagreement. The dispute over the \u201cclose association\u201d versus \u201cassociate membership\u201d did not derail the summit \u2013 but the two sides described the outcome remarkably differently. <\/p>\n Finally, any durable middle-power coalition will need to offer a common story, and live by it. The joint statement<\/a> \u201cdeeply\u201d regrets US sanctions on the International Criminal Court, an unusually direct rebuke of an ally. But it also leans on the language of the \u201crules-based international order\u201d. Many governments in the global south treat this phrase with suspicion and prefer the broader term<\/a> international law. <\/p>\n The difference is more than rhetorical. Defending international law would also mean upholding it when doing so conflicts with members\u2019 own interests or those of their allies.<\/p>\n Regional heavyweights<\/a> such as Brazil, India and South Africa are sceptical<\/a> about the idea of a new post-American world order led by Europe and Canada. So the EU-Canada summit in Montreal is unlikely to have reassured them. <\/p>\nFive tests for potential success<\/h2>\n
What to watch<\/h2>\n
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