TORONTO (AP) — Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney is heading to Europe in the middle of a trade war with U.S. President Donald Trump, seeking a deeper relationship with the European Union that could give Canadians greater freedom to work and study there.
Canada will seek an arrangement that would allow Canadians to live and work in Europe without visas as part of a strategic partnership, according to a senior Canadian official familiar with the discussions.
The official said Ottawa is not seeking to replicate the arrangements Norway or Switzerland have with the EU and did not propose “associate membership,” a term used in a recent report. Canada instead wants a partnership tailored to its priorities, with investment at its core.
Roughly 70% of Canadian exports go to the United States. Europe is central to Carney’s effort to reduce that dependence.
Carney has ruled out EU membership, saying Canada instead wants “a unique alliance” with the bloc.
Canadian government officials have consulted provinces and labor groups but have not settled on what form the relationship should take. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to discuss the talks publicly.
The official said the goal is greater Canadian sovereignty, not less. “We’re not looking at giving up our rights to Brussels or anything like that,” the official said. “It’s quite the opposite.”
Carney will attend European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen’s State of the Union address Wednesday as a guest of honor before addressing the European Parliament on Thursday.
The trip puts him back on the European stage as relations with Washington reel from tariffs, threats and personal attacks since trade talks collapsed. His Davos speech in January drew a personal rebuke from Trump, and another forceful defense of middle powers could raise the temperature again.
Carney is also carrying to Europe a message that has won praise there but that European governments have been reluctant to follow: Middle powers should be willing to resist economic coercion and walk away from a bad deal.
Canada has retaliated against U.S. tariffs and rejected terms Carney says would weaken its sovereignty. Europe, by contrast, shelved retaliation and accepted a deal leaving most EU exports to the United States facing tariffs of up to 15%.
That choice is striking given the EU’s economic weight as the world’s largest trading bloc.
At Davos in January, Carney urged middle powers to band together rather than bow to great powers. When countries negotiate alone with a hegemon, he said, “we negotiate from weakness. We accept what is offered.”
“This is not sovereignty,” Carney said. “It is the performance of sovereignty while accepting subordination.”
In a March European Parliament debate, French lawmaker Chloé Ridel said Carney had “said out loud what many Europeans think quietly,” while German lawmaker Tobias Cremer urged Europe to “show the same courage as the Canadians have done in this moment of rupture.”
Tobias Gehrke of the European Council on Foreign Relations said Europe accepted economic pain in hopes of preserving U.S. support for NATO and Ukraine, but gained neither firm security commitments nor stable ties with Washington.
“European governments will be watching closely to see whether retaliation creates leverage or simply produces more escalation and an increasing bill,” Gehrke said.
Canadian Finance Minister François-Philippe Champagne rejected the idea that Canada’s push toward Europe is simply an effort to gain leverage over Washington, saying Ottawa intends to keep working with the United States even as it builds stronger partnerships elsewhere.
“It’s always about us,” Champagne told The Associated Press. “We will still do things with the United States.”
But Champagne also said the geopolitical landscape has fundamentally shifted. “The world has changed and America has changed,” he said. “And I think the world has taken notice.”
Carney's trip follows his investment summit in Toronto, part of a broader push to attract global capital and reduce dependence on the United States.
Canada and the EU already cooperate on trade, defense, energy, technology, and critical minerals. Bilateral trade reached about $147 billion (127 billion euros) in 2025, making the EU Canada’s second-largest trading partner.
Underscoring the push for closer ties, the European Parliament said Monday it will open an office in Ottawa, its 10th outside the EU, with a regional mandate extending to the Arctic.
“At a time when the world is becoming more unpredictable, like-minded partners need to work even more closely together,” European Parliament President Roberta Metsola said.
Canada this year became the first non-European country to join the EU’s 150-billion-euro ($173-billion) SAFE defense program, giving Canadian companies access to joint procurement. Canada and the EU will hold a summit in Montreal in late October.
Ian Lesser of the German Marshall Fund in Brussels said Trump’s tariffs and policies toward NATO and Greenland have accelerated efforts by Canada and Europe to diversify their economic and security ties.
“The sheer unpredictability emanating from Washington has given history a shove,” Lesser said. He said many in Brussels still prefer to accommodate Washington or “wait and see” whether November’s midterm elections produce a Congress able to constrain Trump.
Carney will also travel to Britain to meet Prime Minister Andy Burnham for the first time. The fellow Everton supporters are expected at Everton’s League Cup match against Wolverhampton on Wednesday.
Associated Press reporter Sam McNeil in Brussels contributed to this report.
Canada Prime Minister Mark Carney arrives at the Toronto International Film Festival Tribute Awards gala in Toronto, Sunday, Sept. 13, 2026. (Chris Young/The Canadian Press via AP)
VATICAN CITY (AP) — When an ailing Pope John Paul II visited the French shrine at Lourdes in 2004, on his last foreign trip, he delivered a forceful condemnation of abortion and euthanasia as he gasped for air during Mass.
Pope Leo XIV is expected to make a similar appeal to protect life when he visits France this weekend and also prays at Lourdes. One of Christianity’s most-visited pilgrimage destinations is especially popular for sick people because of its association with miraculous cures.
Leo’s message will likely land differently, since France’s National Assembly in 2024 enshrined abortion as a constitutional right and recently gave final approval to a bill allowing adults with incurable illnesses to receive lethal medication. It was the culmination of years of debate over end-of-life care in France and comes as other countries in Europe and the Americas have increasingly legalized assisted dying, though British lawmakers recently voted down a bill allowing it.
Catholic teaching holds that life must be defended from conception until natural death. It insists that chronically ill patients, including those in vegetative states, must receive “ordinary” care such as hydration and nutrition, but that “extraordinary” or disproportionate care can be suspended if it is only prolonging a precarious and painful life.
With Leo’s blessing, French bishops decided the official motto of his trip would be “That the world may have life,” suggesting that protecting human life and human dignity will be an overarching theme of the visit.
Leo has emphasized the need to protect the dignity of all human life, from immigrants to the sick and unborn, most significantly in his inaugural encyclical on safeguarding human dignity in the age of artificial intelligence.
Cardinal Jean-Marc Aveline, president of the bishops’ conference, said he expected Leo would raise the issue. “We already know that the question of life and respect for life — not only from an ethical standpoint, but in many ways — is at the heart of the pope’s message and aligns very closely with the message of the Gospel.”
France is a traditionally Catholic country, but adheres to a strict form of secularism in public life based on a 1905 law separating church and state.
And like many countries in the once-traditionally Christian West, France has seen the influence of the Catholic Church wane amid secularizing trends and the impact of the clergy sexual abuse scandal on its credibility.
Yet French bishops have expressed astonishment at the level of interest in the pope’s Sept. 25-28 visit and say they expect 1 million people will see him. Due to larger-than-expected crowds, organizers lengthened the perimeter for Leo's main Mass at the central Place de la Concorde, extending the site beyond the 1.9-kilometer (1.2-mile) length of the Champs-Elysees where he'll parade down in his popemobile.
Leo elicited a similar level of interest in secular Spain in June, where he received a seven-minute standing ovation after his speech to the Spanish Parliament.
“I think nobody many months ago or a few months ago would have imagined” the level of interest, said Sister Nathalie Becquart, a top Vatican official from France. “But they see what happened in Spain.”
Like Spain, France has seen a trend of new adult baptisms in recent years, particularly among conservative young adults, many of whom are attracted to more traditional forms of worship including the old Latin Mass.
More than 13,000 adults were baptized at Easter this year in France, where the number of adult baptisms has more than tripled since 2016, the French bishops’ conference reported. Leo will meet with some of these new converts in a special audience.
But experts caution these numbers don't counteract the overall generational trend of the children of practicing French Catholics no longer going to Mass or baptizing their babies.
In 1980, there were 513,000 baptisms in France; in 2024, a total of 186,000. “The new phenomenon of adult baptisms is put into perspective; in fact, it represents only a very modest rebound,” said Christian Marquant, a traditionalist Catholic who blames the secularizing crisis in the French church on the modernizing reforms of the Second Vatican Council.
Leo is bookending his trip to France with two events to broaden his message to an international audience. On Day 1, he visits UNESCO to speak about artificial intelligence and the value of education and art.
In his AI encyclical “Magnificent Humanity,” Leo called for robust AI regulation and for developers to slow down — a stance they have recently taken as a group. Leo's position on AI has put him at odds with the Trump administration, which has encouraged AI innovation so the U.S. can compete with and surpass China.
The visit to UNESCO by the American pope is significant, given the Trump administration has once again announced it is withdrawing from the U.N. cultural agency, part of its broader retreat from international organizations.
On his final day, Sept. 28, Leo will visit the northern French city of Metz, the birthplace of Robert Schuman, one of the founding fathers of European integration.
Leo will participate in a meeting with other faith leaders and then speak at a European conference on peace, at a time of war in Ukraine and beyond.
The Vatican took the unusual step of announcing ahead of time that Leo would meet with victims of clergy sexual abuse while in France. The gathering of seven survivors includes one who was an adult when abused, a recognition of the new frontier of the abuse crisis facing the church.
The French church has endured a brutal reckoning with its legacy of abuse. An independent report in 2021 estimated 330,000 children had been abused over 70 years by some 3,000 priests and church workers.
Despite criticism of the report's methodology and conclusions, French bishops nevertheless put in place an independent system of compensation for victims that to date has recommended the church pay out more than 20 million euros.
In Lourdes, Leo will be reminded of a prickly abuse case inherited from Pope Francis.
The façade of one of the Lourdes basilicas was designed by the Rev. Marko Rupnik, one of the Catholic Church’s most famous mosaic artists.
Rupnik is currently on trial in a Vatican court, accused by more than two dozen women of having psychologically, spiritually and sexually abused them starting in the 1990s, including during the creation of his artworks.
His case was covered up for three decades by his Jesuit superiors, and even Francis was suspected of having protected his fellow Jesuit. Amid a media outcry, Francis in 2024 ordered a canonical trial, which is ongoing.
The Rupnik case posed the question of what to do with his mosaics, which adorn basilicas around the world.
In 2024, Lourdes Bishop Jean-Marc Micas decided to no longer illuminate the façade of the Notre Dame du Rosaire Basilica at night. He subsequently ordered the decorated doors covered, and more recently decided to cover the façade’s mosaics entirely. He reasoned that abuse victims who come to Lourdes for healing shouldn't be forced to see them.
Since some of the abuse was allegedly committed during the creation of the mosaics, “it is impossible to separate the work of art from the abuse,” said Laura Sgro, attorney for five women who accused Rupnik and have welcomed Micas' decision to cover the mosaics.
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
FILE - Pope John Paul II prays, at the Virgin Mary shrine cave prior to his departure to Rome in Lourdes, southwestern France, Sunday Aug. 15, 2004. (AP Photo/Christophe Ena, File)
FILE - People enter the Notre-Dame-du-Rosaire basilica in Lourdes, southwestern France, Tuesday Sept. 8, 2026 . (AP Photo/Fred Scheiber, File)
FILE - Pope Benedict XVI, center, celebrates a Mass in front of the Basilica of the Rosary in Lourdes, southwestern France, on Sept. 15, 2008. Behind him is one of the mosaics by Rev. Marko Ivan Rupnik, who was declared excommunicated in 2020 for committing one of the worst crimes in church law – using the confessional to absolve a woman with whom he had engaged in sexual activity. (AP Photo/Alessandra Tarantino, File)
FILE - French President Emmanuel Macron and his wife Brigitte arrive in the St. Damasus Courtyard at the Vatican to meet with Pope Leo XIV, Friday, April 10, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
FILE - Pope Leo XIV celebrates a mass at the Basilica Sanctuary of the Mother of Good Counsel in Genazzano, central Italy, Monday, Sept. 7, 2026. (AP Photo/Andrew Medichini, File)
