Canada to be first non-European nation at EPC summit as Carney seeks allies | Canada
Canada will become the first non-European country to attend a meeting of the European Political Community when Prime Minister Mark Carney attends the summit of the 48-plus nation group in Yerevan, Armenia, on Monday.
Carney said he was committed to building a new network of trade and diplomatic alliances following the loss of US markets under Donald Trump. His presence would also be a demonstration of Western support for Armenia in its efforts to distance itself from Russia at a time when Washington’s approach to Moscow’s opponents, such as Ukraine, is uncertain at best. Canadian diplomats rejected suggestions that Ottawa might seek EU membership.
Trump’s plan to withdraw more than 5,000 troops from Germany next year and the economic impact of the protracted US-Iran conflict on western economies will be among the main topics of discussion in Yerevan. Armenia shares a border with Iran, but unlike its neighbor Azerbaijan, it does not claim that Iranian missiles fell on its territory.
Yerevan was chosen to host the EPC, an institution that supports French president Emmanuel Macron and includes the UK, to give Armenia a chance to showcase its strengthening ties with Europe and thus continue its gradual separation from former supporter Russia.
Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan pursued a policy of diversification that, in practice, gradually drew his country into the European environment. The Civil Contract party faces parliamentary elections in June and is seeking a major victory so it can continue its efforts to make peace with Azerbaijan. Pashinyan faces three opposition parties more sympathetic to Russia.
Thomas de Waal, a senior fellow at Carnegie Europe specializing in the Caucasus region, said: “European leaders will need to walk a fine line in Yerevan. They need to hold what looks like a pre-election rally for Pashinyan, while also making a bigger conversation about building a more resilient and less polarized Armenia.”
“The country itself deserves all of Europe’s attention. It is on the verge of a painful but transformative peace deal with Baku that would lead to the reopening of its two long borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey, which have been closed since the 1990s. As the war in Ukraine continues to distract and consume Russia, the country also has a historic opportunity to loosen its over-reliance on Moscow.”
The day after hosting the EPC, Yerevan hopes Tuesday’s first bilateral summit between Armenia and the EU will result in the bloc offering extra funds to promote visa liberalization as well as democracy. When EU enlargement commissioner Marta Kos visited the country in March, she stated that “Armenia and the EU have never been this close.”
The country with a population of 3 million signed a comprehensive partnership agreement with the EU in 2017. Last year, he took the country in a very different political direction from neighboring Georgia by passing a law formally announcing its intention to apply for membership in the bloc.
Although Armenia is a member of the Russia-led Eurasian Economic Union and the Moscow-led Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) alliance, it has frozen its membership in the latter in 2024.
Vladimir Putin said in April that Armenia could not become a member of both the EU and CSTO. “This is absolutely impossible by definition,” he told Russian President Pashinyan.
Macron has been a leading advocate of rapprochement of European-Armenian relations, and his participation in the Yerevan summit is given state visit level significance. He is also expected to attend a concert in Gyumri, Armenia’s second largest city.
Established in 2022, the EPC brings together full members of the EU and a large group of countries outside the Brussels bloc, including the UK, Turkey, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Serbia and other Baltic states.
The group has no official secretariat and long statements are often avoided in favor of bilateral leader-to-leader discussions.
The EPC was met with skepticism at its inception; Some feared this would be an opportunity for countries that have been waiting years for their applications for EU membership to progress. But the willingness of European leaders to continue attending the summits suggests that the meetings serve a purpose.
With Trump’s support, Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a peace agreement in Washington last August. The Azerbaijani side said it would become a full party to the peace agreement once Armenia amended its constitution and claimed that the agreement contained territorial claims against Azerbaijan, but Armenian officials have repeatedly denied this.
