Canada is drawing closer to the EU. But Europe is primarily focused on defending itself

Canada is set to become the European Union’s first associate member. This is the real breakthrough contained in the State of the Union address delivered by Ursula von der Leyen before a cold and divided parliament. This new status as an ‘associate member’ – the details of which are yet to be worked out and defined, given that there are no precedents in this regard – is also the only ‘expansionist’, so to speak, move in a speech which, for the rest, seemed to focus more on a Europe to be defended than on a Europe to be developed. 

For, with the sole exception of the launch of the partnership with Canada – which, as Von der Leyen specifies (for those who care to read between the lines), is not directed ‘against anyone’, but will merely serve to strengthen the two countries in question – the President’s speech was a sort of catalogue of dangers which, in various ways, besiege and threaten the Union. From within and from without. 

Threats to its physical borders, from Lithuania to Ceuta; threats to its very democracy and freedom, the foundations of which have been undermined by disinformation campaigns that have jammed the workings of democracy; threats to its growth, with the enormous challenge of AI, which must, at the same time, be nurtured and curbed; threats to its youngest citizens and their relationship with social media; dangers concerning its energy independence; dangers concerning its trade balance with Beijing, which von der Leyen says she wants to reshape; dangers concerning women’s rights, called into question by the rise of the right-wing virtually everywhere; dangers concerning the climate in turmoil, the wildfires, the floods and the need to tackle them. 

For this reason, a large proportion of the solutions proposed by the Commission President are collective in nature, ranging from the creation of a new European security strategy to the establishment of an ‘Emergency Security Protocol’ mirroring Article 4 of the NATO Treaty; from the launch of new measures for the single market and the reduction of red tape to the development of new energy infrastructure, right through to the implementation of measures (still to be defined) to foster the growth of AI and the establishment of a new European framework to limit the pervasive influence of social media on the lives of young people. And then there is the major issue of immigration, on which von der Leyen states that the only possible response will be a European one – despite the fact that, at least in the immediate aftermath of the events in Ceuta, the only response from countries such as Italy and Denmark was to lock down the Schengen area. 

These are all issues that Von der Leyen lists with a sense of urgency. And she is probably right. But it is unclear who she is addressing, given that any measure will have to pass through a fragmented Parliament and a Council in which anti-European voices are becoming increasingly numerous and influential.