EU and Canada to Unveil Mobility Alliance With an Opening for Italians

The European Union and Canada are set to announce on Friday a new strategic alliance that would include more opportunities for Canadians and Europeans to live, study and work on the other side of the Atlantic, The Local Italy reported. The outlet did not say what legal form the agreement would take, whether national parliaments would be asked to ratify it, or how far the mobility provisions would go beyond arrangements that already exist.

Trade between the two has run ahead of the movement of people for years. The EU and Canada have applied their comprehensive economic and trade agreement provisionally since 2017, while schemes allowing young people to work on the far side of the Atlantic have largely been negotiated bilaterally between Ottawa and individual member states rather than at union level.

For Italy the announcement touches an old artery. Canada holds one of the largest communities of Italian descent outside Italy, centred on Toronto and Montreal, and young Italians have continued to leave for North America and northern Europe in search of work as the domestic labour market has aged.