BRUSSELS — Quebec’s new separatist government is treating this week’s EU-Canada summit in Montreal as the start of a wider diplomatic push to get the province in the room whenever Ottawa and Brussels strike deals that concern its powers.

The separatist Parti Québécois returned to power this month at the head of a minority government in the province, promising to assert greater control over Quebec’s affairs and eventually hold another referendum on independence. 

“Quebec has to be at the table, and Canada understands that very well,” Hélène Drainville, the province’s delegate general to the Benelux and the EU institutions, said in an interview in Brussels.

Prime Minister Mark Carney hosts Commission President Ursula von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa on Thursday and Friday for a summit the two sides have billed as a step change in relations, driven by Donald Trump’s tariffs and a shared need for new partners. Von der Leyen has even proposed to make Canada an “associate member” of the EU — an offer that goes too far even for some of the bloc’s member countries. 

Early drafts of a joint summit declaration include a digital trade deal, a pact to let the European Investment Bank finance Canadian critical minerals projects, and a consignment of Canadian water bombers for Europe’s emergency services.

While Canada is responsible for negotiating the text, much of it lands in areas where its 10 provinces have extensive powers, such as over natural resources, education and health. Quebec is the second-largest province by population after Ontario and has a territory more than twice the size of France — with which three-quarters of its people share French as their mother tongue.

“Canada negotiates the umbrella agreement, and where we come in is when what’s negotiated touches our areas of jurisdiction,” said Drainville, who has been in post for a year. Natural resources are a provincial matter, she added, noting that Quebec has deposits of 22 of the 34 minerals on the EU’s critical list.

The province is already talking to the European Investment Bank and DG GROW, the European Commission’s industry department, about the bank’s entry into Canada, she noted. 

Asked whether Quebec’s interests line up with those of Ottawa, Drainville said federal and provincial officials have already set up joint working groups to implement the summit’s outcomes. “Right now, all the signals are green,” she said.

New arrival

The cooperation comes at an unusual moment. Quebec’s new premier, Paul St-Pierre Plamondon, won power on Oct. 5 while promising a third referendum on sovereignty, though not as long as Trump is in the White House. His cabinet includes the new position of minister for “accession to independence.”

However, support for independence in the province is the lowest it has been for three decades, around 29% in a poll from earlier this year — hardly a popular mandate for the project.

The Parti Québécois has nevertheless pledged to double Quebec’s 34 offices abroad. A party blueprint published last year would raise the number of countries with a Quebec office from 19 to 38 and, if the referendum delivers a “yes” to sovereignty, would turn those delegations into embassies and consulates.

“Quebec is going to start to exist and shine everywhere in the world,” St-Pierre Plamondon said last year, describing the representative network as a prerequisite for independence.

Drainville said the new government, which has been in office for three weeks, has not yet set its line on Europe. 

“Our political leaders haven’t taken a position yet, which is normal,” she said. “But if they decide to double [the network], it’s because they believe in this partnership.” As for the associate-member label, she declined to engage: “We’re not really into semantics. That’s Canada.”

What Quebec does want from the EU, she said, is “win-win partnerships,” noting that the province and Ottawa complement each other and are stronger together when it comes to relations with Europe.

It hasn’t always been so amicable. 

Quebec’s diplomatic ambitions date back to the 1960s, when the provincial government asserted the right to pursue international relations in areas under its constitutional jurisdiction.

Its international aspirations became politically contentious when French President Charles de Gaulle publicly embraced Quebec’s independence movement in 1967 — ending a speech in Montreal by proclaiming: Vive le Québec libre! (“Long live free Quebec!”) 

The Brussels office opened in 1972, and the province now counts 10 posts in Europe, which Drainville called the most of any Canadian province.

Quebec never consented to the constitutional changes Canada enacted in 1982, and its 1995 independence referendum failed by the narrowest of margins (49.4% to 50.6%). A decade ago, Quebec lobbied Europe for a seat at the table in negotiations on the CETA EU-Canada trade deal.

Mark Carney’s pursuit of a global alliance of middle powers has a Europe problem.

Canada’s prime minister wants to help build a new world order that can counterbalance the power of the United States and China. But his vision depends on a new relationship with a Europe that doesn’t see itself as a middle power at all. 

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen has a different vision: a Brussels-centered bloc that extends the EU’s economic and geopolitical influence, starting with Canada. The idea, according to senior European lawmaker Siegfried Mureșan, is to create an opportunity for the EU to become the “global center of gravity for liberal democracies.” 

The competing visions will be tested this week when Carney and von der Leyen meet in Montreal for a summit intended to chart a new course for transatlantic relations. Both want to demonstrate they can prosper in a world upended by U.S. President Donald Trump. But they have different ideas about their curious new alliance — and face political resistance that could limit how far the partnership can go. 

Von der Leyen’s offer of “associate membership” in the EU surprised officials on both sides of the Atlantic. Four diplomats told POLITICO they were not consulted before she floated the idea in the State of the Union. The officials added that they don’t understand the label, which has yet to be defined. Germany has since led pushback on the plan.

“We’ve definitely put the cart before the horse,” one of the diplomats said. “We’re announcing something and then figuring out how to flesh it out.”

Trump called the membership idea “laughable,” but also threatened “very serious tariffs” should it come to be — a reminder that leaders in pursuit of Washington workarounds must avoid provoking the White House. 

The leaders are under pressure to leave Montreal with more than a liberal democratic photo-op. For starters, they need to decide what “associate membership” means — and disarm resistance in the EU capitals blindsided by von der Leyen’s plan.

Canada’s Ambassador to the EU Jonathan Wilkinson told POLITICO last month that people got too hung up on a label that was revealed prematurely. Carney called the Canada-EU relationship an “alliance for the future” when he addressed European lawmakers in Strasbourg.

Wilkinson said the Canada-EU project will show other democratic nations how to deepen partnerships. “It ties into very much what [Carney] talked about at Davos — and after Davos.”

Carney, von der Leyen and European Council President António Costa have two days to chart what’s next while American foreign policy continues to stress test geopolitical relationships in midterm campaigns that will shape Trump’s last two years in office.

The economic divide 

Ottawa considers the EU an obvious partner in its push to diversify trade away from the U.S. There’s already a free-trade agreement that both sides view as being underutilized. 

Leaders gathering in Montreal this week will celebrate the 10th anniversary of the Canadian-EU trade agreement, nicknamed CETA. But nine EU member countries have yet to ratify the deal, underscoring the challenge of turning rhetoric into reality. 

“We have shared challenges and many more shared opportunities,” Canadian International Trade Minister Maninder Sidhu told reporters last week in Dublin, where he was invited to participate in an informal meeting of EU trade ministers, a preview of what a more integrated Canada could look like. “Canada wants to be Europe’s most reliable partner.”

Sidhu said CETA utilization rates in EU member countries range from 60% to 80%, making a point about room for improvement and perennial challenges. “We know there’s room to grow.”

Von der Leyen’s associate membership plan “has been coldly received by member states,” a senior EU official said. “It [the summit] is more about what we do, how we can use the real potential of the CETA agreement.” CETA has been provisionally in force since 2017.

Trade talks between Canada and the bloc read like a lengthy transatlantic grievance list.

At a meeting between Brussels and Ottawa last October, the EU complained about Canadian taxes it says disproportionately hit European carmakers, opaque cheese-import quotas, cumbersome rules on cosmetics and what it considers discriminatory provincial taxes and markups on European wines and spirits.

Canada, meanwhile, warned that the EU’s deforestation rules could burden its exporters, questioned the impact of Brussels’ carbon border tax and pressed for greater recognition of Canadian standards in areas including AI.

The senior EU official described the relationship as constrained by “irritants and unfulfilled promises” that must be resolved if the two sides are to make progress.

There are hurdles ahead. Even as Canada and the EU imagine a deeper economic and security partnership, both are pursuing industrial policies that could shut the other’s companies out of lucrative public contracts — death by compounded trade barriers.

Brussels has concerns about Ottawa’s “Buy Canadian” initiatives and their compatibility with the EU-Canada free trade agreement. “Some member states didn’t like the ‘Buy Canada’ thing from Carney,” the official added.

Canada is likewise uncertain whether its companies will qualify for the EU’s proposed “Made in Europe” preferences foreseen in a major industry bill that would seek to channel public procurement spending to European companies. The EU is divided over whether to extend those preferences to trusted trading partners, a topic that is expected to come up in Montreal.

Canadian business leaders recognize the domestic appeal of “Buy Canadian” in the face of Trump’s threats, but warn there will need to be concessions.

“It’s something that will have to be resolved in order to move the relationship deeper, particularly with respect to industrial cooperation or collaboration,” Mark Camilleri, president of the Canada EU Trade and Investment Association, told POLITICO.

Camilleri likened the 10-year-old CETA deal to a garden overgrown with weeds. “It pains me to see market access being eroded through Canadian and European preferences,” he said.

Pressure is on

European and Canadian leaders are under pressure to deliver wins this week that demonstrate that “non-hegemons” — a descriptor Carney used in his Davos speech — can survive and thrive in an age of great-power rivalry.

Canadians currently support closer ties with Europe. But the EU faces political headwinds of its own, from fraught budget negotiations within the bloc to right-wing populist movements that are picking up momentum in some of its biggest economies.

One likely deliverable is a new digital trade agreement. Talks launched in March and were still underway last week. But the agreement lacks substantive text on artificial intelligence, leaving the two sides to find other places to cooperate, potentially through the EU’s proposed Cloud and AI Development Act. That proposal seeks to reduce reliance on U.S. tech giants, raising the risk of a new row with Washington. 

The European Commission is also pushing for Canada to join Erasmus+, the bloc’s student exchange program, according to one EU official. Carney has already publicly expressed interest. 

But Brussels has bigger ambitions for the partnership. The EU is pressing Canada to increase its funding for Ukraine, a test of Canada’s willingness to take on more of the security burden. 

For von der Leyen, securing that commitment would be a win. So would leaving the summit with a pledge from Carney to explore her offer of an “associate membership” — or whatever they end up calling it.

Zi-Ann Lum reported from Toronto, Sebastian Starcevic from Brussels and Camille Gijs from Dublin.