Swedish Air Force Saab JAS 39 Gripen fighter jets fly during a NATO exercise in the northern and northeastern region of the Alliance in July, 2023.PIROSCHKA VAN DE WOUW/Reuters
The European Union and Canada are forging defence links aimed at reducing their dependence on American weapons as the transatlantic security and trade alliance withers in the era of U.S. President Donald Trump.
A new European Commission white paper on “defence readiness” published Wednesday identified Canada, along with Norway and Britain, as important candidates to bolster the EU’s defence industry in a hurry. The EC calls its plan ReArm Europe.
“Our co-operation with Canada has intensified and should be further enhanced, also to strengthen transatlantic security,” the paper said, adding that the partnerships would trigger “respective initiatives to boost defence industry production.”
Canadian diplomats in Europe have been mobilized to help forge Canada-EU defence deals and trade in general following an October agreement to form a partnership to “focus on the integration of Canada-EU raw material value chains.”
Canada’s ambassador to Italy, Elissa Golberg, early this week sent a letter to Italy’s finance, foreign affairs and defence ministers saying that mutual co-operation is “a matter of urgency” as EU leaders ramp up their defence spending agenda.
The letter, whose contents were first reported by Bloomberg, said that Canada wants to purchase a range of military equipment, including main battle tanks and submarines, “that could potentially be acquired from European suppliers.”
The campaign to forge EU-Canada defence ties came as Mark Carney visited Paris and London earlier this week on his first overseas trip since he was sworn in as Prime Minister on March 14. While Mr. Carney himself did not talk specifically to the media about possible joint procurement projects, Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said the effort is well under way.
“This is very serious,” Ms. Joly told the CBC. “We’ve been in talks to work on defence procurement together. I went to Europe a month ago to make sure we could be a part of that partnership … It’s yielding toward good news.”
Amid the intensifying Canada-U.S. trade war, shortly after he was sworn in Mr. Carney called for a review of Canada’s planned $19-billion purchase of 88 F-35 stealth fighter-jets made by Lockheed Martin Corp. of the United States. Ottawa has said its legal purchase commitment is only for the order’s first 16 aircraft.
The review opens the door for a renewed pitch by Saab AB of Sweden to supply Canada with its Gripen JAS 39 aircraft. The Gripen placed second in 2013 in the competition to replace Canada’s CF-18 Hornet jets, whose deliveries began more than 40 years ago.
As part of its pitch, Saab had offered to build the plane in Canada, a project that would create 6,000 jobs, the company said. There is a precedent: The Gripen has been made in Brazil since 2013. A source told The Globe and Mail on Thursday that Lockheed Martin is offering to create jobs in Canada if Ottawa commits to the full F-35 order.
Saab would not comment about possible plans to relaunch its bid. While the Gripen lacks the F-35 stealth capabilities, its purchase price and running costs are lower. It also can fly faster and has a greater range.
The EU is launching a €150-billion ($233-billion) defence fund that will be backed by the EU’s budget and provide defence procurement loans to member states. The EU said that the fund could help trigger as much as €800-billion ($1.2-trillion) in defence spending over the next four years.
The weapons fund would only be open to EU companies and those from other countries that have signed defence accords with the bloc. So far, that would exclude the United States, Turkey and Britain, though the status of Britain could change as early as this spring.
“We are working on having this defence and security partnership [with the] U.K.,” said Kaja Kallas, the EU’s foreign affairs chief. “I’m really hoping that for the summit, which is in May, we can have results.”
She was referring to the summit called by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer that will host EU leaders. Its goal is to reset Britain’s post-Brexit relationship with the EU.
Canada’s desire for a tighter security relationship with the EU could bring it into the EU’s defence-procurement fold. But were that to happen, or if Canada were to curtail its F-35 purchases, Canadian orders from U.S. defence manufacturers could come under strain or be cancelled outright.
Quebec’s Bombardier Inc., for instance, has two contracts with the U.S. government: one for communications aircraft, the other for surveillance planes. The aircraft are based on Bombardier’s Challenger and Global business-jet models.
“Cancelling the F-35s might be a good idea, but we need to think about it,” Bombardier chief executive Eric Martel told a business audience on Monday in Montreal. “We have contracts with the Pentagon. Will there be reciprocity there?”
Bombardier shares have fallen by about 20 per cent since Mr. Trump won the election, though they are still up by almost half in the last year.
If Canada were to supplement a small fleet of F-35s with Gripens or another European model, the cost of Canada’s fighter jet program could rise, since flying two types of aircraft is less efficient. A 2014 report by Defence Research and Development Canada concluded that “Mixed fighter fleets comparable in size to the single fighter fleet will likely result in lower overall capability, at a higher cost.”
The report noted that two types of aircraft would reduce economies of scale, since systems and processes, from pilot and engineering training to weapons procurement and spare parts, would have to duplicated.