Canadian firms will be able to bid for—and win—contracts under SAFE-financed programmes. On Wednesday, the European Parliament plenary agreed the first deal of this kind in the Union’s history, paving the way for the Council to provide the final seal of approval.
Europe’s new defence-spending programme has a North American partner. The European Parliament voted on 20 May in Strasbourg to approve an agreement giving Canadian companies and products access to contracts financed by the Security Action for Europe instrument. The €150bn loan facility funds joint defence procurement across EU member states. The vote, after extraordinarily impassioned pleas from the co-rapporteurs, passed by 466 to 183, with 14 abstentions.
In practical terms, the agreement means that Canadian firms can go for contracts under SAFE, provided Canada pays a proportionate financial contribution into the instrument’s budget. Normally, at least 65 per cent of the value of any platform procured under SAFE must originate in the EU, the EEA,F or Ukraine. The agreement carves out an exception: Canadian content up to 35 per cent qualifies, subject to strict export-control and intellectual-property provisions that prevent co-developed equipment from being re-exported without EU authorisation.
An emotional charge
For the EU, the practical gains are tangible. Canadian shipyards and ammunition plants offer surge capacity when European production lines are stretched. Canada’s cold-weather expertise addresses capability gaps relevant to Nordic and Baltic defence. Joint procurement is also expected to accelerate convergence on NATO-compatible software and command-and-control standards, easing interoperability in allied operations.
The two co-rapporteurs who steered the file through committee spoke before the vote, and neither confined themselves to procedural formalities. MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Renew/DEU), who led the work in the Security and Defence Committee, was direct about the broader dysfunction the agreement had exposed.
You might be interested
“Colleagues, cooperation in the European defence industry needs to be strengthened and increased,” she said. “Yesterday in the trilogue it became clear that the problem remains a big one. We move not just too slowly, but the legal provisions are not in place. It means that each member state has to take a decision on a national level on its own procedures and its own exemptions. This is simply un-European, colleagues.”
Her frustration was not with Canada. On the contrary. “We have to work together with reliable partners who share our values and interests,” she said. “With Canada, we have built a fair and equal relationship.” She described Canada as “one of the most European countries outside the EU, a reliable partner and since the beginning of the brutal attack in the Ukraine has been on the side of the Ukrainian citizens.” The agreement, she argued, sets a template. “This is a good basis for future cooperation with other partners.”
“Don’t slow us down”
The SEDE chair’s closing appeal to colleagues carried a sharp edge. “Please lend your voice on this side of the House to drown out the other side,” she said in a pointed reference to the substantial, if not decisive opposition (as the vote’s final tally would soon bear out).
We have to work together with reliable partners who share our values and interests. — MEP Marie-Agnes Strack-Zimmermann (Renew/DEU)
MEP Borys Budka (EPP/POL), co-rapporteur for the Industry, Research and Energy Committee, was blunter still. He addressed his remarks not to supporters but to opponents. “I’d like to invite my colleagues from the right of the political spectrum and the right-wing populists: if you can’t support us, don’t disrupt it,” he said. “You don’t understand our need for unity when we have an enemy in Moscow, not in Strasbourg or Brussels. The enemy is elsewhere. You may not understand this, but please don’t slow us down.”
The 183 votes against—roughly 28 per cent of those cast—suggested that the appeal landed with limited effect on the sceptics. The margin of victory was nonetheless comfortable, and the consent Parliament gave under Article 218 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union is legally sufficient to allow the Council to adopt the decision concluding the agreement.
Friction aplenty
The trilogue negotiations that preceded the vote were not without friction. Eastern member states raised concerns that a Canadian share of SAFE contracts might crowd out their own envelopes at a time when Ukraine still lacks critical air-defence assets.
Parliament also demanded audit rights to ensure that dual-use items co-developed with Canada cannot enter re-export to third countries without EU authorisation. On industrial content, MEPs secured a commitment that final assembly or maintenance operations remain inside the EU, with non-EU value capped at 35 per cent per project.
Parliament’s consent clears the last major procedural hurdle. The Council must now formally adopt the decision concluding the agreement. That step requires no further parliamentary input and is likely to follow within weeks. Once the agreement enters into force, Canadian firms will be eligible to participate in SAFE-financed procurement programmes for the first time.
A useful precedent
The economic stakes are not trivial. Canadian defence exports to EU partners could, over time, displace a share of the country’s current dependence on the American market. The diversification has taken on new urgency given the turbulence in transatlantic relations. For the EU, the agreement broadens the industrial base available for joint programmes and reduces reliance on any single supplier for avionics, sensors, and Arctic-capable platforms.
You don’t understand our need for unity when we have an enemy in Moscow, not in Strasbourg or Brussels. — MEP Borys Budka (EPP/POL)
Ms Strack-Zimmermann’s trilogue warning—that the legal architecture underpinning European defence cooperation remains fragmented and slow—will not find resolution in this agreement alone. But the vote of 20 May establishes, for the first time, that the EU’s principal defence-spending instrument can open to a non-European ally. That precedent, whatever its limits, is unlikely to go unnoticed in other capitals.
