Canada looks forward to deepening research and education cooperation with EU

Following up on European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen's State-of-the-Union speech at the European Parliament plenary on 16 September 2026, Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney addressed the EP on 17 September. Referring to Ursula von der Leyen´s State of the EU speech delivered at the European Parliament yesterday, Wednesday 16 September, in which she announced the opening of the door to Canada becoming the European Union’s first associate member, the Canadian prime minister said: “We welcome this ambition.... Canada and Europe should secure our strategic autonomy through deep cooperation in the full range of strategic capabilities, including critical minerals, defence industrial capacity, AI and compute, energy security, space, and payments.”

Amongst other issues, Mr. Carney also talked about benefits of potential Canadian membership of the EU’s Erasmus+ programme and the EU’s next Horizon Europe programme as well as of creating an integrated market for financial services. “Deepening and widening our relationship will strengthen our sovereignty, improve affordability, opportunity and security for Canadian and European citizens, while safeguarding our ability to live our lives as we choose,” he added. With regard to Horizon Europe, the Canadian Prime Minister said that association with FP10 “would allow us to pool resources, cooperate on frontier technology, leverage our world-class research institutes and universities”. Canada became associated to the current Horizon Europe programme in 2024, but only takes part in Pillar II.

For more information:

European Parliament - press release

Recording of Prime Minister Carney´s EP address

Science|Business: Canada looks to deepen research and education links with the EU