Canada: The strong EU-Canada relationship continues to deliver for citizens
The EU-Canada Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC), an annual senior officials meeting set up under the EU-Canada Strategic Partnership Agreement met in Ottawa, Canada, on 10 February 2020.
The JCC reviewed the state of EU-Canada relations and adopted the annual report. This report takes stock of all the major events held, agreements signed, and initiatives launched since the last JCC in Brussels on 28 June 2018. The report highlights growing science, technology and innovation cooperation in areas such as aerospace, agriculture, the Arctic, ICT, health, and security. It also refers to the Ocean Partnership Declaration that the EU and Canada signed at their Leaders’ Summit on 18 July 2019, to reinforce efforts on ocean governance, marine and maritime science and the conservation and sustainable management of marine ecosystems.
These events and initiatives, together with other examples detailed in the report, demonstrate the strength of Canada-EU cooperation and the extent to which citizens in Europe, Canada and beyond benefit from stronger EU-Canada bilateral relations.
The Joint Cooperation Committee also made recommendations to the Joint Ministerial Committee, notably to strengthen cooperation on climate change, on human rights and the rules based international order, international peace and security, and to support digital innovation and artificial intelligence while ensuring the ethical use of existing and emerging digital tools and data.
The meeting was co-chaired by Edita Hrdá, Managing Director for the Americas of the European External Action Service and Peter MacDougall, Assistant Deputy Minister for Europe, Arctic, Middle East and Maghreb of Global Affairs Canada.