Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney has been invited to the 2026 European Political Community Summit in Armenia, making him the first non-European leader to ever be invited.The invitation came from Antonio Costa, the president of the European Council, who has said that Carney will be invited to "participate as a guest.""Europe and Canada are more than just like-minded partners—together we are building a global alliance to defend peace, shared prosperity and multilateralism,” Costa said of Carney's participation..This invitation comes as the prime minister seeks to strengthen ties with Europe to serve as a bulwark against continued economic pressure from the United States.Carney has long aligned himself with the EU and Europe, in the past calling Canada "the most European of non-European countries" and calling for a closer alliance between Canada and the continent across the pond.This marks yet another inclusion for Canada in European-only projects and summits, with Canada previously being announced as the only non-European nation included in the Security Action for Europe (SAFE) defence financing program.The European Political Community is an intergovernmental forum set up after the Russian invasion of Ukraine to better organize and strategize with non-EU European nations.The community includes every EU country and every other European nation that isn't in the EU, with the exception of Russia and Belarus.The summit will take place on May 4, in Yerevan, Armenia.
