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42nd Interparliamentary Meeting with the European Parliament's Delegation responsible for Relations with Canada

The European Parliament Delegation for Relations with Canada and the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association held their 42nd Interparliamentary Meeting on 8 and 9 June 2023 in Brussels. During the meeting, they adopted the following statement:

DEEPER AND MORE WIDE-RANGING COOPERATION

We, the European Parliament’s Delegation for Relations with Canada and the Canada-Europe Parliamentary Association, assembled for our 42nd Interparliamentary Meeting (IPM) on June 8th and 9th 2023 in Brussels, Belgium.

Following our IPM in Ottawa, in December 2022, we were pleased to continue our policy dialogue and exchanges and to engage on new topics of mutual interest and concern, such as artificial intelligence, foreign interference, disinformation, and security and defence cooperation. There is tremendous potential to enhance EU-Canada relations, and the Comprehensive and Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) and Strategic Partnership Agreement (SPA) provide an important framework to further deepen policy dialogue, cooperation, and convergence on issues of common strategic concern.

Over two days, we discussed the excellent state and potential of EU-Canada relations and the ways bilateral cooperation – in a wide range of areas – has expanded under the SPA, which has now been ratified by Canada and by 24 of 27 EU Member States. We also celebrated the value, job opportunities, and investments on both sides of the Atlantic created by the CETA, and restated our desire to see it come into force fully. We call on all remaining Member States that have not yet ratified CETA to acknowledge its positive impacts to date and ratify the agreement expeditiously.

As in December, our conversations continued to take place against the backdrop of Russia’s illegal war of aggression against Ukraine, which informed our discussions on foreign and defence policy as well as energy security and critical minerals. We also held meetings at NATO Headquarters in Brussels and discussed the importance of NATO enlargement and NATO reform.

That visit reaffirmed the vital importance of the deepening EU-NATO partnership at a time when – as expressed in the January 2023 Joint Declaration on EU-NATO Cooperation – “we are faced with the gravest threat to Euro-Atlantic security in decades.” Canadian participation in EU Common Security and Defence Policy missions and operations has been a good complement.

The EU and Canada must continue to work together to defend the international rules-based order. We must continue to work with China where we can, but also de-risk our economic ties and respond appropriately to economic coercion or, as was the case in the past, hostage diplomacy. We also acknowledge that in an increasingly multipolar world, the EU and Canada must continue to work together with our partners in the Global South.

We welcome the agreement by Prime Minister Trudeau and European Commission President von der Leyen in March in Ottawa to increase Canada-EU cooperation with respect to foreign threats to democracy, including disinformation. At a time when we are confronted with the need to address foreign interference and disinformation, it is essential that we work together to set global standards that make artificial intelligence human-centric, trustworthy, and safe, while also promoting innovation.

We look forward to the next Canada-EU Leaders’ Summit, which Canada has agreed to host later this year and reiterate our desire to see members of the Canadian and European Parliaments included in the program.

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