EU-Canada Strategic Partnership: Ups and downs
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.30722/anzjes.vol11.iss3.15105Keywords:
Canada, EU, EU-Canada strategic partnership agreement, Transatlantic RelationsAbstract
Signed in 1976, the EU-Canada relationship was the first bilateral agreement that the EU signed with an industrialised third country. Modest strengthening of the ties was achieved with the 2004 EU-Canada Partnership Agenda. A fully-fledged free trade agreement was in the works at this time, but suspended in 2006. The EU-Canada strategic partnership agreement (SPA) and the Comprehensive Economic Trade Agreement (CETA) did not materialise until more than a decade later, in 2016. This paper focuses in particular on the strategic partnership dimension. It explores why an SPA was possible in 2016, but not before. To answer this question, the paper looks at four time periods. In so doing it explores the origins of the EU-Canada agreement, how the EU-Canada relationship changed over time, and examines how a more profound strategic partnership came about when it did. In its analysis it considers institutional, domestic and geopolitical factors. It briefly speculates about the possible future of this partnership.
Downloads
Published
Issue
Section
License
Submission of an original manuscript to ANZJES will be taken to mean that it is an original work not previously published.
Authors retain copyright and grant the journal right of first publication with the work simultaneously licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY-NC-ND) 4.0 Licence that allows others, including the author, to copy and distribute the material in any medium or format in unadapted form only, for noncommercial purposes only, and only so long as attribution is given to the original author and initial publication in this journal.