Canada’s Carney heralds ‘tight’ EU relationship

ALLÔ THERE. This is Zoya Sheftalovich reporting from Montreal, where Prime Minister Mark Carney sat down with me and POLITICO’s Ottawa bureau chief Nick Taylor-Vaisey after the EU-Canada summit to give his first take on the deals, the disagreements and what comes next. Now let’s get straight into this special Saturday pop-up Playbook. 

— Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney says he won’t change how he talks about ties with Europe to avoid upsetting Donald Trump.

— Ottawa joins the EU’s push to shape AI rules, as the PM warns tech firms won’t stop dancing until someone regulates the music.

On today’s Brussels Playbook Podcast: Zoya and Nick ask Carney about Europe’s outreach to Vladimir Putin — and he says direct talks could be “constructive,” but won’t be picking up the phone himself.

**A message from TikTok: Did you know TikTok advertising generated €31 billion in economic output across the EU in 2025? New research shows the platform helped businesses grow, supporting €13 billion in additional economic output for small and medium-sized businesses and helping millions of businesses reach customers across borders.**

TIGHT TIES, TRICKIER LABEL: “Tight” was how Carney described the EU-Canada relationship in a word, fresh from talks with European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa, where the three leaders pledged to build “the deepest possible partnership.”

The German elephant in the room: Carney called the dispute over the “associate membership” label for the EU-Canada relationship “not a Canadian issue,” but an “internal, broader European one.” POLITICO revealed Berlin objected to the term, which von der Leyen proposed last month, despite supporting deeper ties with Canada.

No Trump-proofing: Asked whether he’d changed how he spoke about the summit to head off a reaction from Trump, Carney said: “Absolutely not. That way lies madness.”

“I speak in Canada’s interests,” Carney said, adding that he can’t be expected “to manage my words so that it doesn’t offend this country there or that country there.” Two senior EU officials likewise said Brussels wouldn’t let fear of a Trump reaction dictate Europe’s agenda. 

Weighing in on Starshield: Ukraine’s reliance on Elon Musk’s SpaceX Starshield satellite network has left it vulnerable, Carney acknowledged. “If you’re connected to a satellite system that a billionaire, almost trillionaire, decides to turn off at one moment or not, that’s not a good idea,” he said. (In mid-October, connectivity was cut to terminals on fast-moving Ukrainian drones, hampering their battlefield use.) Carney said Canada doesn’t depend on Starshield, “nor would we, given the track record.” 

Should leaders talk to Putin? Direct conversations with Vladimir Putin could be useful, Carney said, when asked about the recent call by Finnish President Alexander Stubb and Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre. “I think it depends on the message, and whether previous messengers were clear enough,” Carney said. “Sometimes it’s better to have those direct leader-to-leader conversations.” But he ruled out seeking a meeting with Putin himself at next month’s APEC summit in China.

Working with Le Pen: Carney said working with Marine Le Pen if she became French president would not mean agreeing with her. Asked whether a values-based Canada-EU partnership could survive Europe’s shift to the far right, he said elections are part of democracy and all countries still need partners to protect their sovereignty. “To be sovereign is not to be alone,” he said. “Working with and having agreement on are two different things.”

WATCH IT FOR YOURSELF: You can watch the whole interview and read the transcript here.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney speaks during an interview with POLITICO at Port of Montreal Tower in Montreal, Canada, on Oct. 30, 2026. | Adil Boukind for POLITICO (@adilboukind on IG)

IN A NUTSHELL: The EU and Canada hammered out the contours of a new partnership during a whirlwind 48 hours in Montreal. Here are 8 things we learned and here are even more takeaways.

NO THANKS: Carney also told POLITICO that Russia’s return to ice hockey tournaments is “unwelcome.” 

TICKING CLOCK: Brussels and Ottawa have given themselves until next June to work out what, in practice, their efforts toward “the deepest possible partnership” are going to look like. 

SEE YOU SOON: Carney will attend the European Political Community meeting in Dublin in two weeks, Costa said. Carney’s attendance at the EPC in Yerevan in May was the first time a non-European country had participated in these meetings. 

REIN IT IN: Regulating artificial intelligence is an uphill battle, Carney said in our interview. “So much was done in the financial sector [that] should have been done before the financial crisis,” he said, speaking from his experience as governor of both the Bank of England and Bank of Canada. “It’s exceptionally difficult for industries to regulate themselves.” 

Hey, DJ: While Carney said the tech execs he speaks with take AI seriously, “when the music is playing, it’s hard to stop dancing unless somebody is regulating the music.” Canada is pushing for a technology stability board to bring safety experts together, he said, while warning that G7 and G20 efforts are moving too slowly. 

Hand-in-hand: He pointed to a new AI-driven agreement his government signed with the EU at the summit deepening AI cooperation, granting Canadian researchers access to European supercomputers, and strengthening transatlantic collaboration on how to police the emergent technology. 

“If you’re the European Union, if you’re Canada, some other like-minded countries, as you come together and you do that together to the best extent you can, it is not as good as it happening globally,” he said, referring to AI guardrails and the need to check the ambitions of Beijing and Washington. “But it’s far better than nobody doing it.” 

And yet: This week Carney also showed himself to be an AI protectionist after framing a C$1.6 billion investment into a Canadian AI company, Cohere, as a national security matter.  

Some of that messaging was echoed by Cohere’s cofounder and CEO Aiden Gomez in an interview with our colleagues Pieter Haeck and Mickey Djuric. “There’s a sort of heart and soul to the company that’s Canadian, but we want to protect that into the future,” Gomez said. “We can’t escape the reality that AI is a geopolitical matter at this point. And all AI companies around the world are having to face that fact and so by having them as an investor and stakeholder we’re positioning ourselves to better serve the interests of Canadians.” 

Making headway: The European Investment Bank and Canada signed a framework agreement at the summit, giving the thumbs-up to the bloc’s lending arm to fund Canadian critical mineral extractions that are crucial for future tech. Batteries and circuitry rely on lithium, nickel and cobalt, and at the moment the EU is too dependent on Beijing to obtain them. This deal helps start to change that. 

LNG talks: The two sides will also carry out a “long-term feasibility study” on exporting Canadian liquefied natural gas to Europe. Canada is rich in gas but currently doesn’t have infrastructure to liquefy and export it from its east coast.

What she said: Ursula von der Leyen said it was always her plan for Canada to be included as “Made In Europe” under the Industrial Accelerator Act — proposed legislation encouraging European businesses to go greener through subsidies and payment schemes — meaning Canadian raw materials for things like batteries could end up having a built-in European market. (That is, as she pointed out, if the co-legislators will agree with her.) 

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Playbook is brought to you by POLITICO’s EU Politics team: Gerardo Fortuna, Nicholas Vinocur, Gabriel Gavin, Zoya Sheftalovich, Max Griera, Mari Eccles, Hanne Cokelaere, Lucia Mackenzie, Gregorio Sorgi and Sebastian Starcevic. And: reporters Milena Wälde and Daria Zakharova, editors Alex Spence and James Panichi, and producer Jeanette Minns.

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