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Yesterday, on 16 September 2026, EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen delivered her State of the EU address. This annual speech, first introduced in 2010, is delivered before the European Parliament and is meant to ensure transparency in the EU's political life while highlighting the EU Commission's key priorities. This year's address was of particular importance as it was attended by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney and saw the proposal to open the door to Canada becoming the first associate member of the European Union. 

Tech and digital announcements  

AI and sovereignty  

One of the more important passages of the address was the Commission President's acknowledgement that models in development could enable hacking on an unprecedented scale and would soon be in the hands of adversaries. The call by CEOs of frontier labs to "pace the frontier" was highlighted as something the EU should take seriously. It is for these reasons that the EU Commission announced it would seek to work with partners like Canada and the UK on model evaluation, verification, early warning and AI security, and that frontier AI labs would be invited to discuss industry efforts to pace the frontier. 

The need for the EU to have its own sovereign AI capabilities (especially for national security) was highlighted, with the EU saying it would set out plans to massively boost computing capacity in a "clean and efficient" way. 

While von der Leyen argued that Europe did not necessarily need to develop frontier models outright to capture the value of AI, she stressed that the focus should be on applying AI in factories, hospitals, farming, grids, autonomous driving and defence, using Europe's high-quality industrial data. 

Online platforms: EU Kids Act  

Child online safety was another prominent aspect of the speech. President von der Leyen confirmed that the Commission will present an EU Kids Act on 17 September. She described a tiered, age-based approach: 

• No social media access for children under 13 
• Parent-supervised accounts with limited features and a one-hour daily limit for those aged 13 to 15 
• A safe-by-design obligation on platforms for users aged 15 to 18 

The Digital Fairness Act (meant to tackle issues such as addictive design and dark patterns) was confirmed for proposal this autumn and would address addictive design for all users (not just children). 

Was the UK mentioned?  

As noted above, the UK was mentioned in relation to working together on frontier AI evaluation, verification and security, but, quite importantly, it was also mentioned a second time during the speech. 

Indeed, von der Leyen was eager to highlight the need for stronger partnerships on security and announced she wanted to turn these security discussions with like-minded partners into a "European Security Council", involving partners including the UK. The scale of the risks being faced has made this urgent, and the EU Commission will be setting out ideas on how to make it a reality. 

What does Canada’s Associate EU Membership involve?  

The biggest announcement of the speech was arguably von der Leyen's offer to open the door to Canada becoming the first associate member of the EU. The move is part of the EU's reimagining of its international partnerships in what she described as a complex age of great possibilities and great perils. Within that context, she announced that the EU and Canada would move from CETA to an "alliance for the future", creating a "common prosperity and economic security space" covering a tech alliance, cybersecurity, intelligent manufacturing, the integration of defence industrial bases and a "flagship joint project" on the Arctic. Full details of what associate membership would involve are yet to be announced. 

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney, who was present for the speech, will address the European Parliament on 17 September. Canada and the EU will hold a summit in Montreal at the end of October to further define their cooperation. 

As the UK continues to build on the work begun at last year's UK-EU summit, and ahead of the next UK-EU summit due to take place before the end of the year, the UK now has a clearer indication of the levels of partnership and association that could be possible with the EU, given the right level of ambition. 

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