00:00We are joined by David McAllister, who is a German MEP of the European People's Party,
00:04but also the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee of the European Parliament.
00:08You are, in some ways, the voice of this parliament's foreign policy.
00:13So I want to ask you, to that extent, why do this now?
00:17What's an associate membership? Do you know what that means?
00:19I'm not entirely sure myself.
00:21Well, I think what an associate membership means still needs to be concretely defined.
00:26But I do understand that the Commission President yesterday wanted to underline
00:31that our relationship with Canada is very unique.
00:34Canada is the probably, quote, most European, unquote, country in the world outside Europe.
00:42And we have the trade agreement seat on the one hand.
00:45We have our security and defense partnership on the other hand.
00:47So we have a solid ground.
00:49And now the Commission President wants to take our relationship to the next level with Canada.
00:53So, in your view, is that going to mean a political partnership?
00:57Is this you take the CETA trade agreement and you add on?
01:00Is this something entirely unique?
01:02Mark Carney keeps saying this will be a unique partnership.
01:06When it comes to trade, we have the CETA agreement from the year 2017.
01:10And CETA has delivered concrete results, positive results for Canadian businesses
01:14and also for European businesses.
01:16I would like to call on the 10 member states in the European Union
01:20who still haven't ratified the CETA agreement that they finally now make this step
01:25because until now CETA is only applied provisionally.
01:31And when it comes to security and defense partnership,
01:35well, I also need to see room for further cooperation.
01:38For instance, how to have continued support to Ukraine,
01:41but also what can we do together to guarantee the security of the high north in the Arctic?
01:46So, there are many fields from raw materials of a cybersecurity to a corporation in the Arctic
01:51where Canada and the European Union can still move closer together.
01:54And you call for the ratification of CETA, and that was my next question
01:57because we see the big difficulties to approve just as part of a trade deal.
02:02How does the head of the Commission, your party, the APP, and the Canadians
02:05think they can get this partnership going?
02:07Because it seems to me they will have many hurdles.
02:10We're trying to understand, is this just politics?
02:12Is this just about creating a moment here because you have to create one because this is politics?
02:17Or ultimately, is this going to manifest in a real partnership?
02:20When? By when? What's the timeline?
02:23The CETA agreement is a so-called mixed agreement,
02:26which means that you need support ratification of the national parliaments.
02:30And this obviously is taking too long.
02:32I'm very open here. It's taking far too long.
02:35I do not understand why some of our member states still haven't ratified CETA.
02:39But 99% of all the CETA rules are being applied anyhow,
02:44but they're being applied provisionally.
02:45But the final ratification of the CETA agreement would be a symbolic gesture towards Canada.
02:50That is for one point.
02:51But now we want to have, after we have CETA,
02:54I would say we need a kind of a CETA 2.0.
02:57Let's take our economic partnership to the next level.
03:00And hopefully this will happen much quicker than until now.
03:04Okay, I have two questions.
03:05We're running out of time, but I have to ask you,
03:07do you fear retaliation from the U.S.?
03:09The President of the United States of America said overnight,
03:12if this becomes hostile, there will be tariffs on the EU.
03:16I think if the President of the United States had listened carefully to Ursula von der Leyen's speech,
03:21she would have understood that this is about strengthening the partnership
03:24between the European Union and Canada.
03:26It's not against any third country.
03:28And for the U.K., is there a way forward to, just briefly,
03:31is this now a model for the U.K., Canadian associate membership?
03:35Well, first of all, we need to define what associate membership actually means.
03:38But apart from that, every cooperation format with a third country will always be tailor-made.
03:43Every third country has different interests
03:45and also different constitutional obligations to respect.
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