Mark Carney G7 France trip puts Ireland visit before Evian summit
Mark Carney is heading to Aughagower, Ireland, this weekend before the mark carney g7 france summit in Evian. The visit places Canada’s prime minister in a village of around 40 houses, a pub and a shop, before he moves on to Paris and then the G7.
Carney’s trip comes as Canada pushes closer links with Europe. Ireland wants to position itself as a gateway to the European Union for Canadian business, and Carney wants to move Canada closer to the European Union.
Aughagower and County Mayo
Carney told a St. Patrick’s party at the Irish ambassador’s residence in March that he had been “grounded by my Irish roots” when he was governor of the Bank of England. He also said he had posted “a little map of the corner of County Mayo” in his office, where his grandparents came from.
Carney’s grandfather, Robert Carney, left Aughagower in 1925 to go to Canada. John Concannon said Carney will see the graves of his great-grandparents, go to mass where his family had mass, see where they were brought up and walk the roads they walked.
Canada and the European Union
Carney met Micheal Martin on Saturday to discuss taking more steps to wire Canada closer to Europe. Last year in Brussels, Carney unveiled a strategic partnership agreement with the European Union, including joining structures such as Security Action for Europe, or SAFE, a program for joint weapons purchases.
In May, Carney was a non-European guest among EU leaders at a meeting of the bloc’s political committee. Ireland will take on the rotating presidency of the European Union in July, giving Dublin a larger role as Canada presses its case.
CETA and Irish approval
A bill to formally ratify the 2017 Canada-European Union Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement passed Ireland’s senate on Tuesday. The bill will next go to the President of Ireland, Catherine Connolly, for her formal signature, while executives from Canadian companies such as OpenText, Geotab, Constellation Software and Canada Life are expected at events around Carney’s visit.
The trip links a personal return to County Mayo with a wider diplomatic effort that now has two immediate tracks: the Ireland visit itself and the legal step still moving through Dublin for CETA. For Canadian businesses watching Europe, the next concrete test is how far Ireland and the European Union advance those ties while Carney is in the region.
