Should (and Could) Canada Join the EU? The Legal and Political Reality

One is a supranational bloc of 448 million citizens, split across 27 often-squabbling nations. The other is a continent-straddling country with less than a tenth of that population, but a surplus of valuable things like oil, rare earth minerals, and, of course, maple syrup. On the face of it, Canada and the European Union are very different beasts: allies in geopolitics, similar in temperament in many ways, but geographically distant and shaped by distinct histories.

And yet, in recent months, an unlikely question has been gaining traction on both sides of the Atlantic. A simple question that aims to bind the two together: what if Canada joined the EU?

The spark was United States President Donald Trump’s announcement of steep tariffs on America’s northern neighbor, later partially frozen. But the idea also appears to be the product of a wider divorce between Ottawa and Washington, one so messy that it has left Canadians open to options they would not usually entertain. In one widely shared poll, a full 44 percent of Canadians said they would support joining the EU, against just 34 percent who were opposed.

What would it really mean if Ottawa tied its future to Brussels? What would be the legal, political, and practical barriers to making Canada part of Europe, and would trading the unpredictability of Trump’s America for a stagnant embrace of the old continent save Canada, or help spell its doom? The short version is that joining is probably possible, but the journey would be filled with hellish obstacles, and the more achievable prize lies in deeper trade rather than full membership.

A Sudden Romance Born of Anxiety

To understand how this idea took hold, picture an average Canadian who fell asleep in late 2024 and woke on April 29th, 2025. The headlines that day would have seemed utterly alien. After plunging to historic levels of unpopularity, the governing Liberals had just won an election they were expected not merely to lose, but to lose by a landslide.

The explanation, as it so often is, was Donald Trump. After the 47th president began talking about annexing Canada and threatening economic coercion, politics in the frozen north flipped on its head, and not only when it came to voting intentions. It was in the shadow of American tariffs that the poll showing 44 percent of Canadians warm to EU membership landed.

It was also in that climate that Prime Minister Mark Carney flew to Paris to declare Canada “the most European” country not in Europe. Guy Verhofstadt, the former Belgian prime minister and Brexit negotiator, went further still, declaring on the platform X that there was “no reason why EU membership should be off the table” for Canada.

Of course, there is a big difference between politicians talking about doing something and it actually happening. As of this writing, there are no indications that Ottawa is serious about formally applying for EU membership. But stranger things have happened. Few thought Russia would actually invade Ukraine, that the Liberals would win reelection, or that an American president would openly muse about annexing a close ally.

We live, for better and mostly for worse, in interesting times, where what is unimaginable one day can become fact just weeks later.

What Each Side Has to Offer

The first thing worth noting is that both Canada and the EU have a great deal to offer one another. In one of the earliest think pieces to semi-seriously float the idea, sometimes nicknamed “CANEU,” The Economist observed that Canada has plenty of resources Europe desperately needs. But it is not a one-way street. As the Wall Street Journal put it, “Canada has an abundance of natural resources that the EU doesn’t have, but Europe creates and makes a lot of industrial equipment that helps extract those resources.”

Europe also has an abundance of people, a high proportion of whom are well-educated and relatively wealthy. And the regulatory framework Brussels is infamous for would probably give Canadians a better choice of services in sectors like banking and telecoms than they currently enjoy.

Perhaps more eye-opening was The Economist’s observation that “EU countries have figured out how to create a single market (flawed as it is) that makes it easier to trade between them than it often is for Canadian firms to trade across the 13 provinces and territories of their own nation.” In other words, the bloc many Canadians imagine as a tangle of red tape has, in some respects, solved an internal-trade problem that Canada itself still struggles with.

The Trade Case, and Its Brutal Catch

The key argument, though, comes down to external trade, and it is here that things get genuinely interesting. Although the United States is by far Canada’s biggest trade partner, the European Union ranks second. Since Ottawa and Brussels signed the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement in 2017, trade in merchandise has increased by 65 percent, while trade in services has grown by almost 73 percent.

Remarkably, that is with CETA still in its provisional phase. If Europe’s holdout countries, France chief among them, finally ratified it in full, those gains could be even bigger.

Such gains would, of course, be offset by the absolutely massive loss of trade with the United States, losses so great that Canada would be plunged into a deep and prolonged economic crisis. But if Trump ever followed through on his threat to use “economic force” against Canada, maximizing trade with Europe might well be the strongest of the few slender lifelines available.

There is also a strange quirk of eligibility in Canada’s favor. The country already fulfills two-thirds of the Copenhagen Criteria for joining the EU. As Policy Options notes, it is a free-market economy and a democracy that respects human rights. The only remaining requirement is that it would need to agree to follow EU laws and rules.

So imagine Ottawa made that leap and declared complete alignment with all EU directives. Could it really become the Union’s 28th member? The short answer is, probably, yes. The long answer is yes, but the path would be lined with hellish obstacles.

Reality Check: The Geography Problem

Any quick glance at the Treaty on European Union immediately surfaces one massive problem for Canadian ambitions. Article 49 reads: “Any European State… may apply to become a member of the Union.” No, your geography is not failing you. As a North American state, Canada is not even remotely close to Europe in a geographical sense.

And there is precedent for Brussels taking this clause seriously: when Morocco tried to apply in 1987, the response amounted to a polite reminder that North Africa is not, in fact, Europe.

That does not mean nowhere outside Europe can be part of the EU. There are parts of the Caribbean, South America, and the Indian Ocean that all sit within the Union, while Greenland, situated in North America, was in the bloc’s precursor before leaving in 1985. The crucial difference is that all these examples belong to a country that is itself situated in Europe. Greenland remains part of the Kingdom of Denmark, while most of the EU’s other far-flung regions are legally part of France.

Unless Quebec were to secede and apply to come under the control of Paris, that route simply is not open to Canada.

Even so, there may be ways around Article 49. Just three percent of Turkey’s landmass is European, yet that did not stop Ankara from starting the membership process, though it has since been frozen. Cyprus, meanwhile, is entirely in Asia and a full member of the European Union. Indeed, Prospect magazine dismisses the “must be in Europe” requirement outright, writing that “if Canada really wanted to join, and the member states and the European institutions wanted Canada to join, then a way would be found.

The definition of ‘European state’ could be fudged.” Rather than read “Europe” as a geographical term, member states might interpret it culturally. After all, Canada was born from the overseas empires of Britain and France, and still formally has the British monarch as its head of state. With enough willpower, the treaty could be interpreted in a super-creative way.

Twenty-Seven Vetoes and a Decade of Negotiation

Article 49 is not the only obstacle. All 27 other members of the EU must agree to admit a new one, and some would even be required to hold referendums. This is, to put it mildly, harder than it looks. There is a reason no new state has been admitted since Croatia in 2013, despite North Macedonia changing both its name and its constitution in a heroic effort to get accepted. All it takes is one head of state to say no, and Canada’s dreams would be shattered.

But who would oppose Canada? Consider CETA itself. Ten EU countries still have not ratified the trade agreement signed back in 2017, including major nations like France, Italy, and Poland. If a simple trade deal cannot get over the line in the best part of a decade, what chance does full membership stand?

The risks are concrete. While The Economist suggests France might drop its objections for the boost Paris would get from another French-speaking nation in the bloc, Poland’s powerful farmer lobby might balk at letting in Canadian agricultural produce. And there is always the chance that a leader like Hungary’s Viktor Orban or Slovakia’s Robert Fico could simply decide to sink the whole thing.

Then there are the laws Canada would have to incorporate into its statute books before it could join. Policy Options estimates that bringing Canadian law into line with EU law would take around ten years of bilateral negotiations. Were Ottawa to go through all that, only for membership to be rejected by angry French voters at the final hurdle, it might cause a little bit of ill feeling, to put it gently.

Pain and Pleasure: Sovereignty and Immigration

Those are just the major legal obstacles. There are other reasons to doubt membership will happen, rooted not in law but in two wildly different societies. When Britain was deep in its campaign to leave the EU, two arguments resonated above all others: immigration and sovereignty. It is no coincidence that both could be major stumbling blocks in Canada too.

Take sovereignty first. The cartoon image of unaccountable eurocrats in Brussels writing diktats about the curvature of bananas is an exaggeration. But there is no getting around the fact that joining the EU does require surrendering some national sovereignty. Specifically, the European Court of Justice would become the final arbiter of relevant laws, superseding Canada’s Supreme Court.

And while Ottawa would retain control of its borders, freedom of movement would mean all 448 million Europeans suddenly gained the right to live and work in Canada, use its health system, study in its universities, and claim its welfare benefits. That right would go both ways, and Canadians would face few barriers between themselves and a sweet retirement in the south of France. But there are far more Europeans than Canadians, and Canada is an enticing country.

More to the point, there is nothing stopping Canada from already trying to attract the most desirable Europeans to its shores. If Ottawa wanted an influx of highly skilled, highly educated workers from the old continent, it could simply amend its immigration laws to entice as many as possible. Joining the EU would take far longer to reach that same goal, while also letting in anyone who decided their European winters were not already cold enough.

The Regulatory Burden and a Restless West

Then there are all the laws the EU passes, covering everything from the maximum length of a working week to the moderation of online content. Some of these might improve Canadians’ daily lives, but others might stifle major industries, particularly in the energy and tech sectors.

This could be a particular burden to Alberta, where plans are afoot to build a massive AI infrastructure network worth 100 billion dollars. With European regulations on AI being among the strictest in the world, such a project could be hobbled before it ever gets off the ground. As the National Post has written, “The EU (…) has opted to regulate the AI industry into stagnation. Private investment in AI within the EU fell by 44 per cent between 2022 and 2023, and the EU has done little to stop the bleeding.”

Speaking of Alberta, there is another issue with EU citizenship: how Canadians feel about it depends heavily on where they live. Broadly, those in the east are more likely to feel warmly toward Europe, while those in the west are cooler. As a wealthy, conservative province that has already chafed under successive Liberal governments, Alberta really might follow through on its threat to secede if Ottawa were to throw its lot in with Brussels.

A Bloc Already at Its Limits

The problems would not all be on the Canadian side. After a near-decade of rapid expansion between 2004 and 2013, polling shows Europeans are fed up with the idea of new admissions. One survey found a mere 38 percent want more EU members. This is one reason there is already a waiting list of ten countries, from Ukraine to Montenegro to Albania and North Macedonia. Some, like Turkey or Bosnia, have been waiting for literal decades.

Lastly, there is the question of whether the EU can handle any more members at all. At 27 nations, the bloc is already unwieldy, and growing fractures are making it harder than ever to reach decisions. Just witness the way Hungary keeps torpedoing the bloc’s Ukraine policy, or the fights last decade between Brussels and Poland’s previous government over the rule of law. Adding a vast nation like Canada to this mix could make things more splintered than ever.

Given all these obstacles, it seems unlikely that Ottawa will ever really apply, let alone be accepted. Which raises a more productive question: what could Canada do instead?

Best of Friends: The Realistic Alternatives

When people talk about Canada joining the European Union, they often do not mean it literally. In the same way that most who declare they will move abroad after a bad election result are really just looking for a more colorful way of saying “that result was terrible,” talk of a European Canada is a more expressive way of saying “the United States is acting erratically and we need a backup.”

If that is the case, then what Ottawa is really looking for is not a tortuous, ten-year path to becoming the bloc’s 28th member, but a way of increasing trade with its second-biggest partner. And the good news is that this is eminently achievable.

Although CETA has yet to be fully implemented by all European nations, it is a solid starting point for an expanded trade relationship, one that could grant Brussels access to all sorts of things it critically needs, while allowing Ottawa to hedge against a full breakdown with Washington. The first step would be for all holdout EU nations to ratify and implement it. The next step could be more radical.

Back during the Brexit trade negotiations, one repeatedly floated plan was known as “Canada Plus,” a version of CETA that would have moved even closer to Europe. Now Canada could do a reverse version of this, asking for a “UK Plus” deal, one that would allow participation in more science and defense programs and remove even more potential barriers to trade. While the dollar benefits of such a deal would be small, it would not be for nothing. As Policy Options writes, “The main benefit of the U.K. scenario would be symbolic: showing that we throw our fate with Europe rather than the U.S.”

Beyond a Deal: The EEA, the Swiss Model, and a Western Bloc

The same article floated two other possibilities. One would be to try to join just the European Economic Area. The model adopted by Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway, EEA membership is very similar to EU membership, but with opt-outs on certain things like agriculture and fisheries, and no ability to help shape Europe-wide law.

The second option would be to establish a relationship based on the Swiss model. Switzerland is neither a member of the EU nor of the EEA. Instead, its relationship with Europe is governed by a host of bilateral treaties, the cumulative effect of which is to give the nation high levels of access to the EU market and the ability of its citizens to live and work in the bloc, all while retaining more say over which EU directives it implements. As the article notes, though, getting Canada into a similar position would be far more complex, and take more time, than even the decade Ottawa would need to simply join the bloc.

Still, the key point is that either the EEA or Swiss-style route would give Canada far more access to the European market than it has ever had to the American one, under either NAFTA or the current USMCA. That means hardly any trade barriers for exporting almost anything the nation produces.

But why stop there? Prospect magazine suggests Ottawa could spearhead a drive to create a new organization complementing the EU, one that includes not only EEA countries and Switzerland but also Canada, the UK, and Greenland: a sort of expanded EEA joining together nations culturally close to Europe. Perhaps it could go further still.

Speaking to CBC, former EU ambassador to Russia Michael Emerson suggested a bloc comprising all the world’s rich, democratic nations, minus the USA. Apply that to the membership of the OECD, and you would get a behemoth including not only Europe, Canada, and the UK, but also Japan, South Korea, Chile, Costa Rica, New Zealand, and Australia. Such a bloc would basically be “the West” for short, with an eye-watering combined GDP and diplomatic clout to match any nation on Earth.

Of course, formalizing a supranational entity like that would be the task of the century, so complex it likely would never happen.

Stuck With the Superpower Next Door

Realistically, then, that leaves us with a Canada-EU relationship that could be closer, and may in fact become so, but also with questions over how practical such a relationship could ever be. At the end of the day, Canada is stuck with the superpower on its doorstep.

And while it is good to have backup options, running from the United States because of a president who has less than four years left in office may be short-term thinking. After all, the next president could roll back Trump’s tariffs on Canada. But if Canada were in the European Union come 2029, those tariffs would be there to stay, a permanent feature of a relationship Ottawa chose when it picked one market over another.

Still, it makes for an interesting thought experiment, and it highlights a real issue. For all that his talk of annexation may be bluster, the 47th president’s threats have caused genuine anxiety in the Great White North, anxiety that Canadians have no choice but to respond to. EU membership may not be the solution to all of Ottawa’s ills, but flirting with Brussels shows that Canada still has options, options that the current US president would do well to remember.

Frequently Asked Questions

What sparked the debate about Canada joining the EU? The catalyst was President Donald Trump’s announcement of steep tariffs on Canada, later partially frozen, alongside his talk of annexing the country and using economic coercion. This wider rupture between Ottawa and Washington left Canadians newly open to an idea they would not normally entertain, and a poll found 44 percent in favor of joining the EU versus 34 percent against.

Is Canada eligible to join the European Union? Partly. Canada already fulfills two-thirds of the Copenhagen Criteria: it is a free-market economy and a democracy that respects human rights. The remaining requirement is agreeing to follow EU laws and rules. The bigger hurdle is Article 49 of the EU treaty, which restricts membership to “European states,” and Canada is firmly in North America.

Could the “European state” requirement be worked around? Possibly. Cyprus sits entirely in Asia yet is a full member, and Turkey, only three percent of which is in Europe, began the process before it stalled. Commentators argue that if both Canada and the member states genuinely wanted it, the definition of “European state” could be reinterpreted in cultural rather than purely geographical terms, given Canada’s roots in the British and French empires.

How long would EU membership take, and what could block it? Policy Options estimates that aligning Canadian law with EU law would take around ten years of bilateral negotiations. Beyond that, all 27 existing members must agree, with some required to hold referendums. A single objection, from France’s farming concerns to leaders like Hungary’s Viktor Orban, could sink the bid, and ten countries have not even ratified the existing CETA trade deal.

Why would sovereignty and immigration be obstacles? Joining would make the European Court of Justice the final arbiter of relevant laws, superseding Canada’s Supreme Court. Freedom of movement would give all 448 million Europeans the right to live, work, study, and claim benefits in Canada. EU regulations on areas like AI could also hobble industries, posing a particular problem for energy-rich, conservative Alberta, which has threatened to secede.

Has trade between Canada and the EU already grown? Yes, substantially. The EU is Canada’s second-largest trade partner, and since the two signed CETA in 2017, merchandise trade has risen by 65 percent and services trade by almost 73 percent, all while the agreement remains in its provisional phase and unratified by ten member states.

What alternatives exist short of full membership? Several. Canada could push for full ratification of CETA, then a more ambitious “UK Plus” deal covering science and defense. It could pursue European Economic Area membership, like Norway and Iceland, or a Swiss-style web of bilateral treaties. More ambitiously, commentators have floated an expanded EEA including the UK and Greenland, or even a wider bloc of rich democracies modeled on the OECD minus the United States.

Sources

• Politico: https://www.politico.eu/article/canada-join-eu-unlikely-not-impossible/
• The Economist: https://www.economist.com/europe/2025/01/02/why-canada-should-join-the-eu
• The Prospect: https://www.prospectmagazine.co.uk/ideas/law/the-weekly-constitutional/69530/what-if-canada-wanted-to-join-the-european-union
• Telegraph: https://www.telegraph.co.uk/world-news/2025/03/20/why-canada-is-dreaming-of-joining-the-eu/
• Policy Options: https://policyoptions.irpp.org/magazines/march-2025/canada-eu-option/
• CBC: https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/canada-european-union-1.7446400
• National Post: https://nationalpost.com/news/canada/what-if-canada-joined-the-european-union
• The Walrus: https://thewalrus.ca/canada-eu/
• National Post: https://nationalpost.com/opinion/why-canada-should-not-join-the-eu