Von der Leyen Delivers 2026 State of the Union: Canada Associate Membership, European Security Council

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her annual State of the Union address to the European Parliament in Strasbourg, with Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney attending as guest of honour. Von der Leyen proposed making Canada the EU's first 'associate member,' saying 'I invite Canada to be the first associate member of the EU,' covering deepened cooperation on defence, technology, energy and the Arctic as US tariffs push Ottawa closer to Europe. She backed creating a European Security Council bringing together the EU, UK, Norway, Ukraine and Canada to coordinate responses to hybrid threats and Russian aggression, alongside a new system to jointly attribute and respond to sabotage incidents. Other flagship initiatives included a European Heatwave Plan and Climate Insurance Alliance (only around 25% of catastrophe losses are currently insured), an emergency migration response framework inspired by July's Ceuta border crisis, a call to 'pace' frontier AI development in coordination with allies, and an EU Kids Act restricting social media access for under-13s and limiting features for under-15s.