EU in Practice: Canada and Europe Are Getting Closer. But What Exactly Are They Building?

REDefine // Civic Intelligence Podcast · Sep 22, 2026 · 3m · transcript

The European Union is generally rather fond of categories.

There are Member States, candidate countries, potential candidates, European Economic Area countries, associated countries, strategic partners, third countries associated with individual programmes and third countries very specifically not associated with those programmes. Somewhere in Brussels, one suspects, there is a taxonomy for the taxonomy.

This week, however, Europe did something rather less characteristically tidy.

In her State of the Union address on 16 September, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen proposed…