DUBLIN — Closer ties between the EU and Canada won't mean a worse relationship between the bloc and the U.S., according to Irish Finance Minister Simon Harris. In an interview the day after European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen pitched making Ottawa an "associate member" of the EU, Harris said that closer ties with Canada "is not about having a less close relationship with anybody." "Ultimately the U.S. administration will understand that because it's the truth,” Harris, also Ireland's deputy finance minister, added. Von der Leyen's suggestion, as part of her Wednesday "State of the Union" speech, has not gone down well in Washington, D.C., however.
President Donald Trump warned it could be viewed as a “hostile act” which could see him hitting the bloc with “very heavy tariffs.” “The European Union and the U.S., politics aside, have an extraordinarily interdependent economic trading relationship,” he said. Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne will join a gathering of EU finance ministers hosted by Harris in Dublin Friday, after Prime Minister Mark Carney’s whistle-stop tour this week. The finance ministers of the U.K., Ukraine and Switzerland are also joining to give updates on their economies and hold one-to-one meetings, despite the summit being consumed by disagreements over the EU's next seven-year budget.
Meanwhile, the head of the European Investment Bank, Nadia Calviño, will head to Ottawa on Sunday to lay the groundwork for Europe-Canada cooperation on critical raw materials. Harris said: “It's a real vote of confidence in the European Union, quite frankly, that a country and an economy as big as Canada wants to cooperate.” “Some countries are choosing to look inwards, that's their right. The European Union wants to continue to be outward-looking.
It's a positive development, it's not a development against anybody,” he added. Von der Leyen’s pitch to make Canada an associate member — a legal status that currently doesn’t exist — has ruffled feathers among EU capitals after she made the surprise announcement in a major speech on Wednesday. Carney has said he welcomes the plan's ambition, but stopped short of a full endorsement.
Harris was positive on the pitch, calling it “really exciting” and pointing to climate and cybersecurity as two issues where the EU and Canada could cooperate. Trump visited Ireland last weekend, lifting the 10% U.S. tariff charge on Irish whiskey products as a gesture of goodwill.
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