Trade Winds Blow Canada Toward EU

Although inextricably linked with the United States by geography and economics, Canada has been increasingly voting and trading with Europe.

by Graemme Marshall

Canadian firms export some $19 billion worth of goods annually to the European Union (EU). Sales within Europe by Canadian-owned affiliates are four or five times higher than that. Through its plants in Quebec and Germany, Canadian aluminum giant Alcan supplies most metal required by European automakers BMW and Audi.

New levels of cooperation on investment and trade are bringing Canada and the European Union closer.

As the EU undergoes the greatest enlargement of its 47-year history, Canadians and Europeans are cementing relations. "We've taken the strategic relationship between Canada and the EU to another level," remarked Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern, president of the European Council, at the close of a biannual summit between Canada and the EU held in Ottawa in March.

The summit, attended by Mr. Ahern, European Commission President Romano Prodi and Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin, reinforced cooperation between Europe and Canada. The leaders adopted a Partnership Agenda between Canada and the EU on a wide range of joint interests. They set the framework for a future trade and investment agreement that will make doing business between the two progressively easier.

Canada, in fact, was the first non-European country to sign a framework agreement on political cooperation in 1976 with the then European Economic Community. This year Canada and France mark 400 years of historic relations, dating to cartographer Samuel de Champlain's arrival to establish the first French settlement in 1604.

Why the EU?

Why is Canada looking to the EU as a major trading partner? It's where the trade winds are blowing. It was ironic that on May Day of central Europe's not-so-distant communist past, three countries formerly part of the old Soviet Union were welcomed into the EU. The addition of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, along with five former Soviet satellites—the Czech Republic, Hungary, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia—as well as the Mediterranean island states of Cyprus and Malta, has enlarged Europe in an unprecedented manner. The 10 new members boost the EU's population by 20 percent to 450 million ("Canada World View," Foreign Affairs Canada, Issue 22, Summer 2004). It is emerging as a huge trading powerhouse.

Read the full article at www.wnponline.org/wnp/wnp0412/tradewinds.htm

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