Brussels won’t offer ‘associate EU membership’ to Brexit Britain

LONDON — The European Union has just offered Canada “associate EU membership.” Don’t expect it to do the same for Brexit Britain.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s surprise announcement came during her State of the Union address in Strasbourg on Wednesday.

“We share one ocean, one set of values, one way of seeing the world,” she said, inviting Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney to help make his country “the first associate member of the European Union.”

Could Britain be the second? The idea of “associate membership” has already piqued the interest of some in London.

Ten years after voters chose to leave the EU, lawmakers in Prime Minister Andy Burnham’s ruling Labour Party are looking for ways to unpick the Brexit settlement without re-opening old political wounds.

“We need to be as close to the EU as possible, in the hopes we can find a way back in,” said Bell Ribeiro-Addy, a Labour MP who once rebelled to vote against former Prime Minister Boris Johnson’s Brexit deal.

“If an associate arrangement gets us closer, even as a stepping stone, Britain should be asking for it — not watching from the sidelines.”

Another Labour MP, Clive Lewis, told POLITICO: “Anything that can drag us away from the Starmer government’s disastrous hyper-Atlanticism and closer to the EU has to be considered.”

A “natural question”

Diplomats from EU member countries sympathetic to closer cooperation with the U.K. are also pondering whether the status is a good fit.

“It is a natural question,” one EU envoy told POLITICO as to whether the U.K. might be able seek a similar deal.

The envoy, who like others quoted in this story was granted anonymity to speak about the sensitive topic, added: “We have several similar partners that would be interested and we will have to see what it means in practice.”

But decision-makers in Brussels have been quick to nip the idea in the bud.

One senior EU official told POLITICO that von der Leyen’s offer to Canada is about cutting a deal for a country normally ineligible to join the EU. It isn’t for European countries with commitment issues.

“Unlike Ukraine, Moldova, Georgia, Norway and the U.K., Canada is not in Europe,” the senior EU official said.

“It cannot join the EU. Norway shouldn’t be looking at this and thinking ‘oh we want more.’ This isn’t for them. Their route to that is to join the EU. Same for the U.K.”

Just as well then that the British government is not currently exploring the idea, according to one person familiar with U.K. government thinking on EU policy.

Instead, Burnham’s government is focused on wrapping up a “reset” of relations by his predecessor Keir Starmer. This relatively modest program includes a deal to smooth trade in agri-food, establish a youth mobility scheme, and sign an agreement to coordinate emissions trading.

The deals are meant to be signed off at an EU-U.K. summit to be held by the end of the year. The meeting is yet to be scheduled, however, and talks have been complicated by disputes over EU protectionism on steel and procurement, as well as wrangling over the rate of tuition fees paid by European students studying in Britain.

You say associate, I say ally

It’s unclear whether von der Leyen’s proposal will go anywhere. Carney hasn’t actually asked to become a member of anything — rather, he told delegates Tuesday at an investment summit in Toronto that he wanted to build a “unique security and economic alliance” with Europe.

Reports ahead of Carney’s speech that he would be proposing associate EU membership appear not to have come true — though von der Leyen seemed to respond on Wednesday as if they had.

Yet practically, Canada and the EU are not even using their existing cooperation to full effect. Ten EU member countries including France, Poland and Italy are yet to ratify the EU-Canada free trade agreement, CETA, nearly a decade after it was signed.

Even so, there may be lessons for the U.K. in the EU’s response to Canada’s approach.

“Even if this doesn’t progress past aspiration there can be no doubting that Mark Carney has shown what you can achieve with a clear ambitious message, and a focus on common challenges not red lines,” Stella Creasy, the MP who chairs the Labour Movement for Europe, told POLITICO.

“For the UK, it’s a sobering reminder that if we don’t rebuild our partnerships for peace and prosperity with our neighbors, others will.”

Gabriel Gavin reported from Brussels