EU chief pitches 'associate member' status for Canada

EU chief Ursula von der Leyen on Wednesday raised the prospect of Canada becoming the 27-nation bloc's first "associate member” during her annual State of the Union. The framework aims to move past traditional trade into an "alliance for the future," focusing on a technology alliance, intelligent manufacturing, integrated defense industrial bases and joint Arctic projects. 

Ursula von der Leyen, EU Chief said  " We will step up together with our like-minded partners like Canada, the UK and others. We want to team up on model evaluation, verification, early warning, AI security and much more. And I will invite the main frontier labs for a discussion on how we can support ongoing industry efforts to pace the frontier." 

The proposal serves as a major catalyst ahead of an upcoming bilateral EU-Canada summit scheduled to take place in Montreal, where both leaders plan to establish working groups to iron out concrete areas of collaboration.