EU opens door for Canada to become first associate member, EU Commission president says

European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen has pitched the idea of much closer co-operation between the EU and Canada , bringing the relationship to the “highest level possible”.

This meant opening the door to Canada becoming something she called an “associate member” of the EU, a concept that does not legally exist at present.

Canadian prime minister Mark Carney was in the European Parliament Strasbourg chamber for the speech, and is due to deliver his own address to MEPs on Thursday.

“We believe that power does not belong to the strongest, the richest or the loudest -but to all of us. That democracies have the freedom to choose with whom to work,” she said.

Europe finds itself in an “openly hostile” world where old relationships have “frayed” and an aggressive Russia wages a war on the Continent, von der Leyen said.