A deep dive into the global spy plane market

This image shows the fleet of planes belonging to DEA aviation.

 © DEA aviation


Issued on: 15/10/2026 

FRANCE24

All over the globe – from the Mexican border to Syria to the Sahel – companies are renting out planes equipped with powerful sensors to armies and intelligence services for political missions. The market may be discreet, but it isn’t invisible.

Metrea, Berry Aviation and DEA Aviation aren’t your run-of-the-mill aviation companies. They don’t transport passengers or merchandise; their planes are equipped with powerful intelligence equipment like cameras and radar. These planes are used for "ISR", an acronym for "intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance". ISR missions are meant to detect, identify and then follow targets from the sky.

These days, there is a global market for ISR planes, a trend that began in the early 2000s. When the United States began operations in the Middle East after the attacks on September 11, the army needed to carry out surveillance in both remote and mountainous regions in Afghanistan and within Iraqi cities. Their needs for ISR planes surpassed their capabilities.

The US began calling on companies equipped to provide these services. This practice continues: today, governments employ private planes to patrol and gather intelligence across Africa, the Middle East and along sensitive border zones.

French company CAE Aviation

CAE Aviation is a French company known to be discreet. Registered in Luxembourg, the company has a training and maintenance centre at the aerodrome in Lapalisse, France. It is the leading French company in the field of ISR planes.

The French Ministry of the Armed Forces used a CAE Aviation plane with the registration number F-GYEE on December 7, 2025, when a coup threatened the government of Benin – which reportedly has close links to the French government. This plane was spotted flying over the Benin capital looking for the coup leaders.

This image, taken from the site Flightradar24, shows the flight map for the Beech King Air 350 on December 7, 2025. The site identifies the plane as being part of the French Air Force. © Flightradar24

Metrea: from Mexico to Africa

On the other side of the Atlantic, the giant aeronautical company Metrea also carries out ISR missions. Some of its planes routinely patrol the border between Mexico and the United States. One of its planes, registered under the number N339CA, can be seen flying in continuous circles characteristic of an ISR mission.

On September 11, 2026, an ISR plane belonging to the company Metrea carried out a surveillance mission along the border between the United States and Mexico. © adsbexchange.com

According to online analysts, Metrea planes are also present on the African continent. One plane reportedly landed on October 5, 2026, at the airport in N’Djamena, Chad, after flying through Malaga, Spain. According to the online analyst who runs the X account @fabsenbln, the company isn’t a new actor in the Sahel.

This tweet from October 5 , 2026 shows a plane belonging to Metrea being transferred from Malaga to Chad. Source: X / fabsenbln

The company isn’t just involved in the ISR sector. In July 2024, for instance, the company purchased two supply planes from the French government.
Beechcraft King Air: the ‘everything’ plane

For long surveillance flights, one plane surpasses the others: the Beechcraft King Air. This plane is to the skies as the pickup is to the desert. Discreet and capable of operating across a wide range, this easy-to-use plane is popular among private companies specialised in ISR.

This image shows a Beechcraft King Air that belongs to the French Air Force. © planespotters.net

The Beechcraft is modular and can easily be equipped with radar to detect convoys and troop movements. Communications antennas that work via satellite can also be installed, making it easier to contact operators on the ground.

This image shows a CAE Aviation Beechcraft in its hangar. The plane has a device enabling satellite communication installed on the roof of the fuselage. © Linkedin / CAE aviation

The plane is also, importantly, equipped with what is known as an optronic pod, a system fitted with a powerful camera capable of monitoring the ground, both day and night. Some optronic pods can be used to identify a target with a laser for the benefit of guided missiles.

This image shows a ship, as seen by an optronic pod. These images were shared on September 8, 2023, by CAE Aviation as part of its partnership with Frontex. © Linkedin / CAE aviation

States aren’t the only ones using ISR planes from private fleets. The European agency Frontex relies on companies like CAE Aviation and DEA Aviation to monitor people trying to cross the Mediterranean.

This article has been translated from the original in French by Brenna Daldorph.

BY: The FRANCE 24 Observers
Guillaume MAURICE

LA REVUE GAUCHE - Left Comment: Search results for PERMANENT ARMS ECONOMY

The Existential Crisis Of Statehood: Proliferation And Operational Impacts Of Proxy Warfare In Middle Eastern Conflicts – Analysis

October 24, 2026

By Dr. Ramzi Bendebka


Key Takeaways:

Erosion of the Weberian Monopoly on Physical Violence: Modern proxy warfare is counterintuitive to historical processes of state-building, with arming, financing, and training sub-state actors beyond constitutional structures, creating a destabilizing ‘oligopoly of violence’.

Institutional Infiltration and Hybrid Sovereignty: Iranian-backed proxy networks use the weakness of the state within the region to create parallel political, military, and economic systems; they receive public funding and enjoy state immunity and constitutional impunity and are not subject to civilian oversight.

Shift from Pan-Arabism to Statist Preservation (Wataniyya): There has been a significant paradigm shift in the political agendas of the region from the 20th-century concept of trans-state Arab unity (Qawmiyya) to the need to protect territorial sovereignty, state borders, and nation-state existence (Wataniyya).

Great Power Disruption and Transactional Failure: Superpowers and global competitors—such as the United States, Russia, and China—use the Middle East as a zero-sum space of influence, prioritizing short-term counterterrorism, energy security, or geopolitical leverage over supporting the strengthening of Middle East state authority.

Introduction

The nation-state has been the most contested and least taken-for-granted political form in the modern Middle East. The territorial map of the region, largely laid out during the imperial reordering of the post-World War I era, has remained cartographically persistent. Still, the internal substance of state sovereignty in the region has been increasingly eroded. Following the Arab Uprisings of 2011, it was widely predicted that the borders drawn by Sykes-Picot were destined to disappear due to the free movement of people or sub-state fragmentation, but this never came to pass. Practical administrative powers of the States wielded within these borders, however, have greatly eroded, and the gap between de facto administrative control and domestic legitimacy, and de jure legal sovereignty (international recognition), has significantly widened.

Post-colonial independence produced many ‘hard, weak states’ that were structurally fragile and institutionally lacking strong civic legitimacy, yet coercively authoritarian in their behavior towards domestic dissent. The random delineation of imperial borders created a degree of incongruity between the borders and identities, sowing seeds of irredentism and structural vulnerabilities in the regional system. The struggle of sub-state or trans-state identity networks thus remained a continual threat to modern statehood in the Middle East, while the domestic state’s concerns centered on the regime’s survival.

The current status of the Middle Eastern nation-state can only be understood by studying the state’s internal structural weaknesses and the external actors that exploit it. Certain of these external dynamics are the most acrimonious challenges to statehood in the region today, above all the constant proliferation of asymmetric proxy warfare. Proxy war is an active erosion of the state that undermines the monopoly on physical violence, institutionalizes hybrid forms of government, and involves non-state armed actors in the host state’s constitutional and administrative power structure. Modern proxy war is not a war to overthrow the international boundary; it is a war that undermines the central state from within by exploiting structural differences at home. External sponsors arm sub-state proxies with high kinetic power and turn states into places of constant security rivalry, endangering the very survival of Westphalian governance in the Middle East.

From Pan-Arab Unification to Statist Preservation: The Reordering of Regional Priorities

Throughout the twentieth century, there was a strong push for supranational ideational movements to question the legitimacy of individual states in the Middle East. Arab nationalism was an anti-colonial movement that stood for nationhood, asserting that all Arabic-speaking peoples were a single, undivided nation (al-Umma al-‘Arabiyya) united by language, history, culture, and a sense of collective identity. It began in the late nineteenth century, during the so-called Nahda (Arab Awakening) under Ottoman rule. After the First World War and the establishment of the Western mandate regimes, the Arab nationalist movement became a fervent anti-imperialist movement that demanded political unification of the Arab community under the slogan of pan-Arabism (Qawmiyya).


In Pan-Arabism, post-colonial territories were viewed as artificial, temporary, and divisive constructs of European colonial powers. Classical Pan-Arab ideologues asserted that the Arab world was divided into independent states, a historical aberration that could not stand and had to be rectified by achieving pan-Arab unity. In this ideology, it was considered that the security and interests of the whole Arab nation (raison de la nation Arabe) were of absolute moral value and priority over the narrow self-interest of any state (raison d’état). The notion of individual state sovereignty (Wataniyya) was often denounced by Pan-Arabists as “regionalism” or disloyalty to the anti-imperialist cause.

The zenith of Pan-Arabism was during the 1950s and 1960s when the charismatic Egyptian President, Gamal Abdel Nasser, led the way. In 1956, Nasser nationalized the Suez Canal, and in his victory over the British, French, and Israeli forces, Cairo came to wield great trans-state ideological influence. Nasser appealed directly to the populations of neighboring Arab states via Radio Cairo’s Sawt al-Arab and played on popular pressure within the country against pro-Western conservative regimes. To a large degree, Nasser created an informal norm of regional behavior that established standards of conduct, thereby limiting the sovereignty of individual states and punishing states seeking security alliances outside regional “collective” security systems.

The most explicit effort to realize the Pan-Arab dream was in February 1958 when Nasser unified Egypt and Syria into the United Arab Republic (UAR). The UAR was a policy of political incorporation, in which the state sovereignty of each member state was supposed to disappear in favor of a single regional state. The UAR experiment, however, very quickly revealed the fundamental conflict between unionist ideals and structural realities. The union was highly centralized in Cairo, with the Egyptian military and technocrats controlling key offices; the Syrian political parties were disorganized, and Egyptian economic policies were imposed on Syria. The union was not an equal one for the political and military elites of Syria, who felt frustrated by their subservient position to Egypt, and saw it as a form of Egyptian administrative rule that looked to promote the Egyptian state rather than unity. In September 1961, the Damascus military coup dissolved the UAR and reestablished Syria’s independent statehood. The UAR’s demise dealt a major blow to the cause of Pan-Arabism, as it became clear that even ideologically similar peoples were unwilling to give up their local statehood and administrative autonomy.


While the UAR revealed the structural weaknesses of pan-Arab unification, the catastrophic Arab defeat in the Six-Day War of June 1967 brought an end to the pan-Arab ideology. The rapid military collapse of the Arabs undermined the revolutionary regimes’ most important claims to regional leadership and anti-imperialist legitimacy. Following 1967, Arab foreign policy made a turning point: a fundamental change in emphasis from the ideational to the pragmatic dimension and from trans-state action to Westphalian statecraft. Self-help, territorial defense, and realpolitik power balancing were the sole means of survival adopted by Arab regimes in response to the serious security threats they faced. Internal state-building was further encouraged by the regularities of war and increased domestic revenue flows from the 1970s oil boom, leading to greater state strength and resistance to external ideological subversion by individual governments. The notion of patriotism and loyalty based on the individual territorial state, called Wataniyya, became the dominant factor in international relations in the Middle East, replacing Qawmiyya.

The contemporary political leaders play the role of Arab nationalists (neo-pan-Arabism) defensively, not with the intent of creating a unified entity that would diminish the importance of the state and increase the power of the pan-Arab movement. The politics of the region is less about seeking to “blur boundaries” than about a fierce, defensive effort to preserve and strengthen the state. The modern regional order in the Middle East is focused on the security of state structures, national boundaries, and the integrity against sub-state disintegration. Unlike in the mid-twentieth century, when states embraced the option of political merger, today’s governments in the Middle East are driven to preserve the nation-state and its security against armed sub-state actors and other proxy forces that aim to weaken the state from within.

De-Structuring the Sovereign State: Iranian Proxy Networks and Great Power Dynamics

Non-state armed actors within asymmetric proxy networks pose the greatest current threat to state survival in the Middle East. This is the approach that the Islamic Republic of Iran has followed, building an advanced regional network dubbed the “Axis of Resistance” (Mihwar al-Muqawama). Iran’s proxy model was launched in the wake of the Islamic Revolution in 1979 and is being managed by Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps – Quds Force (IRGC-QF), giving Tehran the ability to deploy asymmetric force, create strategic depth, and intimidate regional and global opponents, without facing the financial burden or the direct military threat of conventional interstate conflict.

Iran’s proxy strategy does not aim to overthrow host states or take their place with formal colonies, but rather creates a situation of “hybrid sovereignty”. Hybrid proxy actors are not revolutionaries but rather reside in, exploit, and control formal state structures from the inside. The result is parallel sovereignties that gradually erode the state both politically, militarily, economically, and administratively.


Hybrid proxies compete in national elections, serve in the parliament, and occupy key cabinet positions in the political and institutional arena. They use political tactics and threats to obtain legislation that allows them to block national defense decisions, control civil ministries, and control huge sums of public money to pay their own staff, build their own military bases, and establish their own political networks. In the military sector, the formal state armed forces, known as the military apparatus, are underfunded or constrained. At the same time, hybrid proxies maintain their own military wings equipped with advanced kinetic weapons, including precision-guided ballistic missiles, armed uncrewed aerial vehicles (UAVs), and anti-ship cruise missiles. These armed wings are totally independent of operational control, having their own councils and external patrons, and are neither under the national defense ministries nor under the constitutional commanders-in-chief.

In the economic domain, proxy networks create shadow economies that are not subject to the central bank’s control. They are tasked with taking control of key international border crossings, overseeing illegal cross-border trade, levying illegal customs duties, and conducting commercial activities. These activities deprive central state treasuries of tax revenue and finance the militia. In the social sphere, Proxies run alternative social welfare systems, religious courts, and medical facilities. Their provision of basic services to the marginalized creates solid sub-state popular legitimacy which outstrips the under-resourced civil infrastructure of formal state structures. Hybrid proxy actors benefit from all the advantages of statehood, such as sovereign immunity, legal protection, state salaries, and state representation via official diplomatic agents, but do not assume the constitutional responsibilities, legal obligations, or civic duties imposed by contemporary Westphalian statehood.

The three regional case studies – Lebanon, Iraq, and Yemen – illustrate this type of state capture very clearly. Hezbollah has transformed from a secret movement to the strongest political and military group in Lebanon. Hezbollah has a technologically advanced military wing, both in the number of precision-guided missiles it possesses and in the capabilities of those missiles. Hezbollah maintains an effective veto over the cabinet’s decisions and controls the Lebanese military, with members in the country’s cabinet and parliament. Hezbollah’s unilateral actions, such as deploying thousands of fighters in Syria to preserve the Assad regime or to start wars on the borders with Israel without considering the consequences, have deprived the Lebanese government of its authority over war and peace, thereby removing the formal state from the list of sovereign powers.

However, in Iraq, the vacuum of security since the 2003 U.S. invasion was the breeding ground for the flourishing of armed groups that are backed by Iran. The creation of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF / Hashd al-Shaabi) was triggered by the emergence of ISIS in 2014, which brought together dozens of armed groups. In 2016, the Iraqi parliament passed a law to incorporate the PMF into the state security apparatus and to allocate government salaries to its members. But this was a legal incorporation, not a legal subordination of militias to the government. Establishing and cultivating strong allegiance to outside patrons, extensive black-market economic networks, control of border crossings, infiltration of state ministries, and unapproved military incursions into foreign countries are all hallmarks of key PMF brigades that are systematically undermining official Iraqi sovereignty.


The Ansar Allah-Yemen conflict has turned into a proxy war, where a domestic political issue became a catastrophic war. In 2014, the Houthis decisively seized the capital city of Sana’a, ousting the recognized government, after receiving advanced missile technology, armed drones, and tactical training from Iran and Hezbollah. The Houthis took over to collect taxes and run millions of people without internationally recognized authority in the north of Yemen. The Houthis, who have a geographic location along the Red Sea, used their fleet of advanced missiles and drones to target international maritime traffic, even though they never have to face international legal liability for their actions, while also threatening Saudi Arabia continuously and trying to make one of the regional powers weaker.

Moreover, the principal-agent slippage is very severe in the case of proxy warfare. As time goes on, non-state proxies develop local bases, acquire local revenue, and advanced military technology. This leads to the emergence of local political aspirations and independence among the proxies, which sometimes result in confrontation with their sponsors or in their sponsors becoming entangled in unnecessary escalations. If autonomous proxies launch an uncoordinated military operation or violate red lines, host countries face devastating counterattacks. The formal host has no veto over the foreign patron or the local proxy and is completely disenfranchised in matters of national security.

These sub-state proxy threats have been consistently ignored by the global great powers (the United States, Russia and China) in trying to help Middle Eastern states eradicate them. 

Great power interventions have often worsened state fragility because of three systemic factors:

The Middle East is one field of zero-sum strategic competition for the world’s powers.

 Great powers do not invest in transparent institutional state-building; instead, they foster their state or sub-state allies to outcompete their global rivals. In Syria, for example, the Russian military intervention has been based on the principle of preserving the regime and ensuring naval facilities in Tartus and Khmeimim, rather than on the goal of restoring a unified and responsible state apparatus. Second, external actors pursue short-term transactional policies and narrow security interests, rather than policies aimed at dismantling non-state militias, to address issues of energy transit, nuclear non-proliferation, and counterterrorism. The United States has, on many occasions, directly allied itself with sub-state actors to achieve tactical objectives against extremist groups which have, in turn, negatively impacted central state authority. Third, foreign involvement that focuses on regime change or rapid withdrawal has repeatedly undermined administrative governance. The 2003 invasion of Iraq by the US and the 2011 NATO invasion of Libya destroyed existing institutions and administrative systems, but did not create any viable alternatives. The resultant security vacuum enabled regional competitors and non-state networks of proxy forces to grow by leaps and bounds. But caught between aggressive sub-state proxy penetration and the transactional apathy of global powers, Middle Eastern states are structurally undermined and cannot assert exclusive Westphalian sovereignty over their national territories.

Conclusion

The Middle East is now a nation-state in crisis. The Middle Eastern state was often designed as a hard, weak state: tightly militarized, institutionally weak, structurally vulnerable, and lacking civic legitimacy. Proxy war aggressively takes advantage of this situation, and it is an engine of state de-structuring. External powers provide funding, arms, and training to sub-state actors, thereby breaking the Weberian monopoly of physical violence and replacing the state with a heterarchic oligopoly of force. The rise of hybrid proxy actors, like Hezbollah in Lebanon, the PMF in Iraq, and the Houthis in Yemen, who hold formal positions in the government and also operate as independent military forces, creates permanent political gridlock and structural weaknesses, as well as threatening neighboring countries. At the same time, one can see that Middle Eastern states are preoccupied these days with the fundamental problem of protecting their borders, institutions, and survival, shifting from 20th-century Pan-Arab unionism (Qawmiyya) to statist preservation (Wataniyya).


To restore stability in the Middle East, the era of proxy management must give way to rebuilding the political substance of the nation-state in a functional, empirical manner. Domestically, governments at various levels should establish clear civic institutions, promote national citizenship, and ensure that all organized armed militias are strictly subordinate to the unified constitutional defense forces, or even eliminate them. At the international level, the world’s great powers and regional powers need to shift from a competitive approach to indirect involvement in fragile states. Unless territorial sovereignty is respected and the central administrative system is rebuilt, the Middle Eastern state will continue to perpetuate a vicious cycle of institutional collapse, proxy rule, and conflict.


About Dr. Ramzi Bendebka
Dr. Ramzi Bendebka is an Assistant Professor and Researcher at the International Islamic University Malaysia, Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia. His research fields include International Studies, Middle Eastern and African Studies, Regional Studies, and the Asia-Pacific Region. He is a contributor to different well-known sites and platforms, like Asia Power Watch, the Atlas Institute of International Studies, and Modern Diplomacy. Ramzi Bendebka is a section editor, editorial board member, and reviewer in several journals. He edited several books, and his recent research paper, “New regionalism” in the Middle East and North Africa region (MENA): an evaluation of its characteristics, Journal of International Studies.
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EU and Canada draw closer in Trump’s unpredictable world – with Britain looking on

Copyright AP Photo/Toby Melville

By Luca Bertuzzi

Published on 22/10/2026 - EURONEWS

The EU and Canada are hoping to deepen ties at their upcoming Montreal summit, in areas like trade, energy, defence and critical minerals. Meanwhile, the UK is seeking its own reset with Brussels.

The European Union has offered Canada something it has never offered another country: associate membership. Quite what that means remains unclear, but Brussels and Ottawa are determined to turn their shared values and increasingly close relationship into a new kind of partnership in a world shaken by Donald Trump's unpredictable foreign policy.

The experiment is being watched closely in London, where Prime Minister Andy Burnham is seeking to rebuild Britain's post-Brexit relationship with the EU, raising the question of whether a similar arrangement might eventually be available to the UK.

The offer, made by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen last month, has raised questions about whether associate membership is a meaningful new status, an honorary title or something in between.

At a summit in Montreal next week, the two sides will begin putting substance behind the idea, seeking closer cooperation on trade, defence, technology and energy without Canada formally joining the bloc.

But while Canada is searching for a new framework, Britain is attempting to improve an existing one, with EU and UK leaders set to meet next month to seek a much-needed reset in their relationship.

"This is a moment to act with clarity and ambition. By aligning more closely - economically, technologically, and strategically - Canada and the EU are building an Alliance for the Future based on trust and shared values," reads the latest draft of the EU-Canada joint statement, discussed by ambassadors on Wednesday.

A blank sheet

Since European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada last month to become the EU’s first “associate member,” Brussels and Ottawa have been exploring what this privileged partnership could look like.

Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney prefers to talk about an “Alliance for the Future.” He has sidestepped questions on whether he is comfortable with the “associate membership” label, stressing that substance matters more.

The summit in Montreal on 29-30 October is the first real chance to define the partnership in more detail. The latest draft uses “associate membership” interchangeably with “Alliance for the Future.”

Crucially, the proposal envisages giving Canada a more regular place at the EU's table, with participation in summits, ministerial meetings and technical discussions.

It calls for "early consultations on major policy and regulatory initiatives, with Canada’s participation in these processes as an associate member of the Union."

Whether the term survives in the final text is an open question. In any case, “the full scope of this associate membership will be defined by the 2027 Canada-EU Summit,” the conclusions read.

From trade to defence

The document nonetheless tries to put more meat on the bone. It builds on the 2016 Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA), which 10 EU countries have yet to ratify, to remove remaining trade barriers and ensure reciprocal market access.

“We will ensure mutually favourable treatment in our respective economic security measures, based on the principle of reciprocity in industrial sectors where both sides have agreed to align their external measures to ensure the same outcome,” the draft statement reads.

On energy, the conclusions open the door to “the development of liquefied natural gas exchanges,” notably through a joint long-term feasibility study on LNG exports to Europe.

On technology, Canada will join the EU’s supercomputer initiative, a new digital partnership will tackle issues like AI and digital identity, and an agreement to facilitate cross-border data flows is in the making.

Critical raw materials, one of Canada’s key assets for the EU, are also on the table. The two sides have agreed that the European Investment Bank will play a role in critical mineral projects, from extraction and processing to manufacturing and recycling.

In defence, Canada is already part of several EU projects, including the Permanent Structured Cooperation and the Capability Coalition, and both sides intend to deepen that cooperation on maritime security, crisis management and industrial cooperation.

The partners also envisage a cooperation framework to safeguard the information space and protect electoral integrity, with an early warning mechanism and a dialogue dedicated to foreign interference.

Other areas under discussion include border security cooperation with EU agency Frontex, criminal justice, climate security, transport and the Arctic.

Taken together, the proposals suggest a partnership extending far beyond conventional trade agreements, even if its institutional form remains uncertain.

Searching for a reset

The EU's growing closeness to Canada comes as Britain searches for a new relationship with the bloc, a decade after the Brexit referendum.

The contrast is striking. While Ottawa is being offered an undefined but potentially far-reaching new status, London is still negotiating improvements to its relationship with Brussels, largely one sector at a time.

The next EU-UK summit, postponed from the summer following Keir Starmer's resignation and Burnham's arrival in Downing Street, offers an opportunity to make progress.

While the UK government was already searching for amending ties with the bloc, Canada's approach to the EU definitively shattered one of the Brexiteers' key hopes to turn the so-called Anglosphere into a free trade area encompassing the UK, US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand.

"It is hardly surprising that Brexit has not delivered on that promise, and UK opinion polls have slowly started to shift in favour of rejoining," Charles Tannock, a former Conservative MEP who campaigned for Remain, told Euronews.

Since becoming Prime Minister, Burnham has repeatedly signalled that he wants to take the UK closer to the EU. He considers the status quo “not good enough” and has vowed to consider options ranging from following Canada’s example to re-entering the bloc.

While Burnham has restarted the domestic debate about rejoining the EU, the post-Brexit relationship between Brussels and London has not always been easy, with some UK officials asking why "associate membership" should not also be available for them.

“In an ideal world, with the UK we have even closer ties to the extent that the UK is a European country and if it wishes so, the ambition should not be an associate membership, but full membership,” Tobias Cremer (Germany/S&D), a leading lawmaker on EU-Canada relations, told Euronews.

Moving forward

Speaking during a European Parliament debate on Wednesday, Bernd Lange, the German Socialist who chairs the Trade Committee, welcomed a “new mood” in EU-UK relations.

He suggested that Britain could pursue an arrangement resembling Switzerland's relationship with the bloc, alongside closer political and security cooperation and a customs union.

But Brussels rejected the Swiss model as a template for Britain during the Brexit negotiations.

Switzerland's complex network of bilateral agreements has long frustrated EU officials, who argue that such arrangements are difficult to oversee and enforce, particularly when they provide access to parts of the single market without all the accompanying obligations.

Instead, British and EU negotiators are focusing on specific agreements covering agricultural trade, emissions trading and youth mobility.

A recent Franco-German proposal to include the UK in the 'Made in Europe' rules removed one sore point, but London is hoping to extend it to other sectors where it sees EU industrial policy becoming increasingly protectionist.

In defence, the EU needs the UK as part of a broader European security architecture, but the two sides failed to agree to include Britain in the planned Security Action for Europe (SAFE) for defence procurement.

Brussels offered Canada much better terms for SAFE, with a token upfront payment of around €10m. It asked the UK for a whopping €6.5bn, with no guarantee its industry would win any contracts, leading to a breakdown in the negotiations.

“Burnham is on a learning curve, to be honest," Tannock said. "He needs to. He’s been the mayor of Manchester for some years. He hasn’t been focused on this issue. He will be trying to get fully up to speed with what’s available."

Peggy Corlin contributed to the reporting.

EU-Canada 'love story' needs more than warm words, senior MEP warns

Copyright AP Photo

By Peggy Corlin

Published on 23/10/2026 - EURONEWS

European Parliament’s point man on Canada, Tobias Cremer, told Euronews that the planned “associate membership” should include an institutional framework formalising closer ties between the EU and Canada.

The EU must turn its offer of “associate membership” to Canada into a meaningful partnership that goes well beyond trade, Tobias Cremer, the European Parliament's standing rapporteur on Canada, told Euronews.

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the EU's first “associate member” in September, but gave little indication of what the unprecedented status would mean in practice.

The offer comes as geopolitical upheaval draws Brussels and Ottawa closer together. Canada is embroiled in a trade war with its traditional US ally, while the EU is struggling to keep Washington on its side over Ukraine.

The two sides are due to meet at a summit in Montreal at the end of next week, with agreements expected in several areas, including critical raw materials and digital cooperation.

“For the last couple of months, we've been great, Canada and Europe, at writing each other love letters and saying how much we really want to work together,” said Cremer, a German socialist MEP. “But I think now is really the time to start to get serious and turn that love story into concrete commitments.”

He added that “associate membership” must mean the “closest possible partnership that the EU can offer to a non-European country and since Canada is probably the most European of non-European countries that should be very close.”

Beyond trade deals

Cremer insisted that the relationship must amount to more than “a trade deal ‘plus’”.

“There must be a new quality to the relation.”

He called for a “pragmatic approach,” involving sectoral agreements covering trade, defence, digital cooperation, the Arctic and students, but also going further.

“We should go a step further and start embedding all of these great initiatives into something more enduring, into a common institutional framework of coordination and cooperation.”

Cremer suggested that Canada could participate “as an observer” in the Council of the EU, where national ministers meet, and called for the creation of a formal parliamentary partnership assembly.

Such a body could follow the model of the existing EU-UK Parliamentary Partnership Assembly, which brings together 35 members from each side twice a year for sessions that can focus on specific policy areas.

Regarding the UK, however, the MEP described it as a European country for which, “if it wishes so,” the ambition “should not be associate membership, but full membership.”

His comments came as UK Prime Minister Andy Burnham recently floated the idea of rejoining the EU, with polls showing that a majority of Britons want to return to the bloc.

But Cremer also argued for closer cooperation not only with the UK and Canada, but also with countries such as Australia and South Korea.

“I think it is of our interest to bring all of these actors together and say 'hold on, actually the majority of the world wants to play 21st century politics which is focused on collective security, on shared interests, on mutual respect rather than might is right.'”

Turkey, Canada unveil new “strategic partnership” as Carney visits Ankara

Erdogan, right, was reported as telling Carney: "We had diplomatic relations, but we had some kind of disconnect for a very long time now. And today we put an end to it." / Turkish presidencyFacebook

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By bne IntelliNews October 22, 2026

Defence, transportation and energy will be at the heart of a new “strategic partnership” between Canada and Turkey, Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said on October 22, while on an official visit to Ankara.

Carney is eager to build ties with countries around the world, given that he is locked in an escalating and bruising trade war with US President Donald Trump that means he is in a hurry to reduce Canadian dependence on neighbouring America.

Carney and Erdogan signed the partnership declaration between the two middle powers together and announced the start of negotiations on a free trade agreement.

“We have taken a historic step toward the future of our relations,” Erdogan said after the signing ceremony, as quoted by the Associated Press (AP). “Elevating our relations to the level of a strategic partnership will not remain merely on paper; it will not be a merely symbolic step,” he added.

“No country, whatever it’s blessed with, no country builds strength alone,” Carney said. “The most resilient countries bring together complementary strengths, with trusted partners.”

Carney will visit Istanbul on October 23 for talks with Turkish business groups.

Erdogan said Turkey and Canada are hopeful of building up their annual bilateral trade from around $3bn to $5bn initially, and then to $10bn.

In investment, there is some prospect that Ottawa and Ankara will study the feasibility of a bid by Canada's Candu nuclear team to build Turkey's planned second or third nuclear power plant.

In 2024, Canada ended an export ban on the sale of weapons to Turkey. It was imposed in a response to military incursions into Syria conducted by Turkey, as well as to show Canada’s opposition to the provision by Ankara of backing for Azerbaijan in its conflict with Armenia. Some military drone equipment provided to the Azerbaijanis by Turkey was, to Ottawa's displeasure, partly made with Canadian parts.

“Allies must be able to rely on each other for equipment and capabilities that keep us safe,” Carney was further reported as saying by the AP.

“Today’s new agreement on defence industry partnership will connect Canadian and Turkish companies to work together, creating good jobs at home, export opportunities abroad, greater security for our citizens and contributing to a stronger Nato alliance,” he added.

CBC reported Erdogan as saying that a new chapter in relations between Turkey and Canada was opening, stating: "We had diplomatic relations, but we had some kind of disconnect for a very long time now. And today we put an end to it. Now comes a new period, a new era for Turkey and Canada. This is what we're starting today."

The fact that Turkey has become increasingly authoritarian under Erdogan, its leader of 23 years, has not gone unnoticed in Canada and there is considerable disquiet in the country at the upgrading in relations with Ankara.

"This is morally a difficult dilemma on the Canadian side, but the calculus appears on the part of the government that if Canada were to choose to diversify only with democracies the ceiling for success would be low," Thomas Juneau of the University of Ottawa, an expert on the Middle East, was quoted as saying by CBC.

INTERVIEW

How people in Libya and beyond are living with Khadafi's legacy, 15 years on

Fifteen years ago today, Moamer Kadhafi was captured RAPED and killed by rebel fighters, ending 42 years of one-man rule over Libya. RFI spoke to Libya specialist Virginie Collombier about what "Khadafism" stood for, who still believes in it and whether the removal of its architect has made life better for the country's people.


Issued on: 20/10/2026 - RFI

Libyan dictator Moamer Khadafi during the celebrations marking the 40th anniversary of his rise to power on 1 September, 2009. REUTERS/Zohra Bensemra/Files

Kadhafi seized power in Libya in a military coup in 1969 and went on to build one of the most idiosyncratic states of the 20th century.

Funded by vast oil wealth and enforced by ruthless repression, it was guided by his Green Book – a manifesto proposing a “third way” between capitalism and communism, and officially called the Jamahiriya – or “state of the masses”.

Kadhafi cast himself as a champion of Arab – and subsequently African – liberation, and backed armed groups abroad, which brought years of Western and United Nations sanctions.

His fall in 2011, following an uprising and a Western-backed military intervention, left Libya split between rival governments in the country's east and west. Many Africans blame his removal for the instability that has since spread across the Sahel.

In February this year, Kadhafi's son Saif al-Islam, long seen as his political heir, was assassinated, leaving his supporters without a leader.

We asked Virginie Collombier, a professor at Luiss Guido Carli University in Rome and a specialist on Libya, what survives of Kadhafi's ideas and influence, in Libya and beyond.

RFI: Is Kadhafism simply the Green Book – the text which set out a third way, anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist, to shape the political, economic and social life of the Jamahiriya?

The Green Book is often seen as the symbol of Kadhafism, and it's the central doctrinal text: a third way meant to offer an alternative to the two great ideologies of the 20th century, capitalism and communism. But Kadhafi's way of governing was based on a much broader set of ideas and institutions.

The fundamental idea was that sovereignty should belong directly to the masses. People organise themselves at grassroots level through popular committees, which are then connected to the government and the executive branch. There was also a distinctive economic outlook, often likened to socialism, though it took different forms and shifted over time. And there were doctrinal elements drawn from Islam, which likewise evolved.

In foreign policy, the main principles revolved around Arab nationalism, then African nationalism, and a revolutionary anti-imperialist theory. Remember that Kadhafi took power in 1969, when the Cold War was at its height. Pan-Arab nationalist movements, notably [Gamal Abdel] Nasser’s in Egypt but also in Syria and Iraq, had already transformed the region. Kadhafi arrived somewhat late, and his approach to power was heavily influenced by what was happening elsewhere at the time.

Kadhafi alongside Egyptian President Gamal Abdel Nasser – the leading figure of Arab nationalism – in 1969. © Wikipedia

RFI: In the West, Kadhafism is associated with political repression, regional conflict and alleged support for international terrorism. Why have his revolutionary ideology, Arab nationalism and pan-Africanism taken a back seat?

First, because these are not things that are particularly appreciated in the West. Kadhafi very quickly found himself in direct confrontation with the United States and France. There were repeated attempts by a number of Western powers to eliminate him, directly or indirectly.

His “third way” was also fundamentally at odds with parliamentary democracy. Behind the rhetoric of mass democracy, the system was highly centralised. Repression was severe and fell on every kind of opposition: political, of course, but also views that challenged the idea of Libya as above all an Arab nation, denying the country’s ethnic and linguistic diversity.

His economic policies also generated strong opposition, with many people badly hit by the nationalisation of property, including homes.

Alongside the repression, the system used local levels of power to install loyal interlocutors on the ground – in effect a policy of repression, and reward for the regime's local representatives.

The redistribution of wealth through the central state [notably oil resources from 1960s onwards] also reinforced the concentration of power.

Finally, by positioning himself as a leader of anti-imperialism and opposition to European colonialism, Kadhafi backed a number of movements that the West regarded as terrorist: national liberation movements in Africa, but also in Northern Ireland and Palestine.

The regime went as far as supporting terrorist attacks, which led to major US and then UN sanctions lasting more than 20 years.

RFI: The Arab League dropped Kadhafi, yet many African heads of state continued to back him after the first UN embargo in 1992. Why was Kadhafism less successful in the Arab world than in Africa?

Tensions between Kadhafi and other Arab leaders emerged very quickly. He was a flamboyant figure who soon fell out with several Middle Eastern governments, particularly Egypt’s, because he wanted to be the leader of the Arab world. He was also seen as a troublemaker – relations with France, and especially the US, were very strained.

So he changed tack, shifting from Arab nationalism to Africa: its future, decolonisation and development. He pursued a series of African policies, including support for development and investment, which quickly made him an admired figure overall, although his popularity varied from country to country.

On 18 May 1990, Kadhafi was the first head of state Nelson Mandela went to thank after leaving prison, in recognition of his generous support for the ANC during the apartheid years. AFP/Mike Nelson

RFI: What remains of Kadhafi's legacy in Africa? Libya specialist Vincent Hugeux says Africa is “short on heroes”, which made Kadhafi “an icon by default”.

It's now 2026. For the younger generation, who makes up the majority of the continent’s population, Kadhafi is a distant memory. They often have other reference points, but it's true that iconic figures are thin on the ground. Among some African elites, Kadhafi did a lot of good, so there's a certain nostalgia.

There may also be, and it's surely grown in recent years, deep resentment, even anger, towards the countries that took part in overthrowing him. They say, with some justification: "You removed the regime without any clear plan for what would come next."

Removing Kadhafi profoundly destabilised the whole region. Through a domino effect, it had severe and damaging repercussions, particularly in the Sahel, in terms of insecurity, instability and the spread of jihadism. It isn't the only explanation, but there is maybe a feeling that the military operation that toppled him in 2011 had many harmful consequences for Africa.

RFI: Libya was the only country to see foreign intervention during the Arab Spring pro-democracy protests – a “humanitarian” intervention by the West carried out without the African Union’s backing.

Unlike what happened in most countries in the region in 2011 and 2012, Libya was the only state where Western powers chose to intervene.

There were attempts at mediation, notably under South African leadership, to find a compromise between the protesters, or opponents of Kadhafi, and the regime. But Western powers set these mediation efforts aside and gave them no serious consideration. That remains a major source of tension and criticism among African elites.

The intervention was also seen as a betrayal by Russia, which has since used its veto to block any form of intervention proposed at the Security Council. In 2011, Moscow abstained on Resolution 1973. The West had presented it as a text embodying the “responsibility to protect” demonstrators and civilians. In practice, that responsibility was very quickly turned into a military intervention with the clear aim of toppling the regime.

RFI: Why has the Kadhafist movement in Libya never recovered since the 2011 revolution?

The year 2011 was particularly complex. Unlike in Egypt or Tunisia, where a popular movement brought down a regime and replaced it with another, three things overlapped in Libya.

There was a popular movement that quickly became militarised and was met with repression. At the same time, the confrontation between the regime and its opponents was compounded by a deep division in the country between pro and anti-Kadhafi forces, both armed. This turned the conflict into a genuine civil war.

Finally, and above all, foreign military intervention added another layer of complexity and strengthened the various anti-Kadhafi factions on the ground.

When the regime collapsed, the country was deeply divided between the victorious revolutionaries and the defeated, who were marginalised and sidelined for several years.

In this divided Libya, the two rival camps realised that, for security and political reasons, they needed to bring in a number of figures from the Kadhafi era. From 2017-18 onwards, a process of absorption and co-option began, with a number of former prominent figures aligning themselves with either Khalifa Haftar [leader of the Libyan National Army] or the Tripoli government.

Those who refused to join that system were, to varying degrees, allied with Saif al-Islam Khadafi. But although he was politically charismatic, he had no army or real militia capable of mobilising people. Nor did he have the financial means to do so, which put him at a disadvantage.

Following his assassination in February 2026, his movement is in real crisis. There's no figure for supporters to rally around and no real political project either. Among Kadhafi's surviving children, it seems that no one has the desire or the ability to play that mobilising role.

Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi and Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez on the island of Margarita in 2008. AFP

Libya's road to democracy remains blocked as political stalemate endures

RFI: The writer Jean-Louis Gouraud, who knew Kadhafi well, wrote in his 2023 book that “Kadhafism was nothing other than Kadhafi”. Do you agree?

Kadhafism was indeed very much centred on Kadhafi as a person, on a highly personalised system of power closely tied to him. At the same time, Kadhafi was the product of a society and a rather particular history.

In some respects there was something very Libyan about him. In a way he organised around himself a system closely tied to his country’s social structures and history. This is what is sometimes called the “Libyan personality”.

It reflects quite well what Libyan society went through in terms of profound upheaval: from the colonial period to independence and the discovery of oil – and the brutal way that transformed society and the role of the state.

We tend to forget that Libya and its people spent several decades largely cut off from the rest of the world because of sanctions and embargoes. That still shapes the Libyan personality today, even though new generations have of course come along.

So yes, in some respects you could say Kadhafism was Kadhafi. But it's also the reflection of a country’s history, and upheavals in a society that we haven't yet properly analysed or understood and which are quite unusual.

This article has been adapted from an interview in French by Anne Bernas.