Canada signs deal deepening European defence and security partnership
Prime Minister Carney met with EU members in Brussels
Canada and Europe were drawn a little closer together Monday after Prime Minister Mark Carney signed a strategic defence and security partnership with the European Union.
The agreement opens the door for Canadian companies to participate in the $1.25-trillion ReArm Europe program, which is seen as a step toward making Canada less reliant on — and less vulnerable to — the whims of the United States.
Eventually, it will also help the Canadian government partner with other allied nations to buy military equipment under what's known as the SAFE program.
"It will help us deliver on our new requirements for capabilities more rapidly and more effectively, it will help build our industries, secure our jurisdictions," Carney said at the closing news conference of the Canada-EU summit in Brussels.
"We are very pleased to be taking this important step towards participation in SAFE as part of ReArm/Readiness Europe bringing shared expertise, joint research and innovation."
A joint EU/Canada statement released Monday explained Canada will work to increase defence and security co-operation through SAFE and the new security and defence partnership, which will require further talks and agreements before both become reality.
The statement said Canada and the EU will:
- Boost co-operation on maritime security, cybersecurity and other threats to further peace efforts.
- Expand maritime security co-operation and increase co-ordinated naval activities.
- Increase defence industrial co-operation.
- Protect democratic institutions by working together to combat disinformation.
- Tighten Canada's integration with EU forces to improve interoperability in the field.
- Co-operate on defence procurement through the ReArm Europe initiative.
- Work toward a bilateral agreement related to SAFE.
- Explore forming closer ties between Canada and the European Defence Agency.
Carney has been signalling for months that his government is unhappy with spending as much as 70 per cent of its military equipment appropriation on U.S.-made gear.
Other non-EU nations, including the United Kingdom, have already struck their own strategic agreements. Australia signalled last week it has started negotiations on a deal with Europe.
Much of the focus has been on the joint equipment procurement aspects of the impending deal. However, the U.K.'s agreement, made public on May 19, establishes a series of institutional links for crisis management, maritime security and cybersecurity.
It is nowhere near as comprehensive as the NATO alliance. But given the growing uncertainty over the reliability of the Trump administration, the partnership is important.
"It could complement NATO. It's not necessarily a substitute," said Stephen Saideman, who holds the Paterson Chair in International Affairs at Carleton University in Ottawa.
"It makes sense to work with the Europeans as much as we can on defence," he said. "Maybe if we do this kind of thing, NATO can live even if the United States pulls out."
The joint statement released on Monday also says the two parties have agreed to forge a "new ambitious and comprehensive partnership" to "promote shared prosperity, democratic values, peace and security" that goes well beyond security co-operation.
To do that, the statement says, Canada and the EU have launched a process that "will move Canada and the EU closer together" on a number of fronts such as trade, supply chains, aligning regulations, artificial intelligence, climate change, justice and international crisis response on top of security and defence.
"Today this is a new era of co-operation," Carney said. "[This] brings us closer together from defence to digital, from supply chains to security."
NATO spending to be debated
Carney will be attending the North Atlantic Treaty Organization summit in The Hague, in the Netherlands, almost immediately after signing the defence and security deal with the EU
The 32-member Western military alliance is set to debate raising the defence spending benchmark to a combined five per cent of a country's gross domestic product (3.5 per cent for direct military spending and an additional 1.5 per cent for defence infrastructure).
Christian Leuprecht, a professor at the Royal Military College of Canada in Kingston, Ont., said the way the defence partnership and the ReArm Europe program are set up, they could not be considered a replacement for NATO because there's no operational military aspect to the individual arrangements.
However, a significant aspect of the U.K. deal involves strengthening co-operation through "exchanges on situational awareness and threat assessments in areas of common interest, including classified information."
The agreement goes on to say that "the U.K. and the EU will explore additional measures to ensure that classified information can be exchanged swiftly, safely and effectively" in accordance with Britain's security of information laws. That's significant because the U.K. — like Canada — is part of the Five Eyes intelligence-sharing network that includes the United States.
It remains unclear, at the moment, whether Canada's deal will contain similar provisions.
Leuprecht describes ReArm Europe as a "cartel" with a mission to drive down prices of military equipment through collective procurement.
A big component of the EU scheme is the SAFE loan program that allows member countries to borrow from a $235-billion fund for military equipment at more favourable rates than direct national borrowing. It's intended for smaller countries with less fiscal capacity and lower credit ratings, Leuprecht said.
There are rules to the loan program that encourage members to buy European and partner equipment.
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With files from Peter Zimonjic