EU countries have dropped an "associate member" offer to Canada from the Montreal summit statement, opting for vaguer talk of "ever closer association", Politico reported on October 28.

Germany, Greece and France were among a group of member states that objected to any mention of associate membership in the joint statement, diplomats told the paper, which saw the latest version of the draft. The text still needed final approval, with capitals given until 6pm on October 28 to raise objections.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen floated associate membership in her State of the Union speech on September 16, catching several EU capitals off guard. The bloc's treaties contain no such category, and six weeks later the capitals have stripped the name out of the first formal document to follow her speech. The climbdown is about the label, not the substance: Brussels is still offering Canada a much wider partnership as both sides look for ways to reduce their exposure to Donald Trump's America.

An earlier draft had committed the two sides to "work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of Associate Member". The final version reads:

"We will create an even closer association between Canada and the EU... and work to define by the 2027 EU-Canada Summit the concept of an ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself."

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney played down the change before a cabinet meeting in Ottawa on October 27, calling the summit "the launch of further formal discussions, negotiations over the course of the next year".

"The good news is it doesn't matter about specific names or nomenclature. What matters is the difference that it will make to lives of Canadians," Carney said.

Berlin's objection is partly about vocabulary. Germany already uses the term "associated membership" for its relationship with countries such as Ukraine, which is pursuing its own EU accession bid, German Ambassador to Canada Matthias Luttenberg said in an interview with CTV News. "I think we have been a little surprised by the announcement, which doesn't mean that we cannot agree on it," he said, adding that the concerns were not aimed at Canada.

Trump called the idea "laughable" in September and suggested it could be a "hostile act".

The 21st EU-Canada summit runs on October 29-30, with European Council President Antonio Costa and von der Leyen in Montreal to launch what the two sides call a Canada-EU Alliance for the Future. It falls on the tenth anniversary of the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which several EU member states have still not ratified.

Some concrete deliverables are lined up. The European Investment Bank (EIB) is set to sign a deal with Canada on critical raw materials, Politico reported on October 27, building on a non-binding letter of intent the two sides signed in Toronto in March that would let the EU's lending arm finance Canadian mining and processing projects for the first time.