EU, Canada sign defence and security deal in rearm push

BRUSSELS, Belgium: Canada and the European Union on Monday signed a defence and security pact as the transatlantic partners seek to better confront Russia, with worries over US reliability under President Donald Trump.

The deal was announced after a summit in Brussels between Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and EU chiefs Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa.

“While Nato remains the cornerstone of our collective defence, this partnership will allow us to strengthen our preparedness... to invest more and to invest smarter,” Costa, who heads the European Council representing EU member states, told a press conference. “It opens new opportunities for companies on both sides of the Atlantic.”

The pact seeks to bring Canada´s defence industry more closely into European efforts to revamp the domestic industrial base.

It opens the door for Ottawa to join common procurements under a recently approved 150-billion-euro ($174-billion) loan programme backed by the EU´s central budget to boost rearmament.

It also paves the way for Canadian defence firms to tap into the scheme, although that requires the signing of a separate deal. The EU said the pact would deepen cooperation in areas including crisis management, defence industry collaboration, hybrid threats and military mobility.

Britain signed a similar defence partnership in May, and Australia and the EU announced they had started negotiating another one last week.

The signing comes on the eve of a Nato summit where allies, which include Canada and 23 of the EU´s 27 nations, are due to sign off on a ramped-up defence spending target of five percent of GDP.

The pledge is seen as key both to satisfying Trump -- who has threatened not to protect allies spending too little -- and helping Nato build up the forces it needs to deter Russia.

Carney said the deal with the EU will help Canada “deliver on our new requirements for capabilities more rapidly and more effectively”. At a time of international instability, Canada was looking to diversify and strengthen its international partnerships, he added.

“We turn first and foremost to our most reliable allies, those who share our values of democracy, freedom and sovereignty,” he said. Ottawa, which is yet to meet the current 2 percent Nato target having spent 1.4 percent of GDP on defence in 2024, buys much of its military equipment from the United States.

But relations have soured under Trump, who has repeatedly called for Canada to become the 51st US state and announced tariffs on its exports. The EU is Canada´s second-biggest commercial partner. Bilateral trade in goods was worth 75.6 billion euros in 2024, up 64 percent since 2017, when a free-trade agreement provisionally entered into force.