On 26 September, Presidents of the European Council and of the European Commission represented the EU at an EU-Canada summit on Ottawa. This summit was marked as a beginning of a new era in Canada-EU relations in the joint declaration by Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Presidents Hermann Van Rompuy and Jose Manuel Barroso. The reason for this ambitious naming is the conclusion of negotiations on two key agreements – the EU-Canada Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement and the Strategic Partnership Agreement. These agreements, according to the leaders, will codify the long-standing and deep-rooted friendship between Canada and the EU, a friendship that is based on values and common history. President Van Rompuy did not forget to mention in his bilingual speech the sacrifice of many Canadians in the two world wars that shaped Europe as we know it today. The economic agreement is a new generation trade agreement, a comprehensive agreement involving trade in goods and services, investment, government procurement and other trade-related areas. It is the first trade agreement of this type the EU will conclude with an industrialized country. It should provide a boost for economies on both sides of the Atlantic. The Strategic Partnership Agreement provides a framework for and deepens EU-Canada cooperation in global issues such as peace-keeping, security, energy, research, technology and the Arctic. The joint declaration touched also upon the current issues debated in the global arena, such as Russian aggression in Ukraine and the Islamic State in Iraq and in the Levant.

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