MONTREAL — On Friday, Canada and the European Union closed their 21st bilateral summit by announcing the Alliance for the Future, a new partnership of nations built for a world, in the founders’ phrase, “shaken by new storms,” and open to any like-minded country that asks nicely.

Every detail of the alliance has been published except one, and that one has no chair.

1. What it is

The alliance is described in the founding documents as a partnership that will “leverage the strategic capabilities” of Canada, the EU, and what the documents charmingly call “a variable geometry of like-minded nations.” A variable geometry means the membership is not fixed. It flexes. As of Saturday, no member has confirmed its own shape, and observers say this is normal for alliances and also, they admit, a phrase they have never heard used with confidence.

2. What it is for

The stated goals are a “common prosperity and economic security space,” which is the kind of phrase that would mean something if anyone could finish reading it. The Guardian reported that the alliance is conceived for a world “shaken by new storms.” CTV’s summit coverage noted the same weather vocabulary used eleven times in two days by people who did not once name a single storm.

3. Who is missing

Everyone in the hall knew. The guest list is, by design, open to the world. The world arrived, minus one country that hosts summits, has the world’s largest navy of aircraft carriers, and has been informed by its own vice president that it “can’t fix Europe.” That country’s absence was described by one European official as “not a decision.” It was not, he clarified with a smile that diplomats train for exactly this, a decision either.

4. What the neighbors say

Canadians, ever the considerate host, insist the alliance is a compliment to American ideas. “Prosperity. Security. Sovereignty. These are American inventions,” said one Ottawa trade official, who asked not to be named because his briefing folder was American-made. “We are simply, you know, carrying them out in the neighborhood. Without the loud one.”

"Every time we meet, we describe the world as shaken by new storms. Nobody says the storm's name. That is what diplomacy is."

5. What comes next

The alliance will meet again, with variable geometry, in a city to be announced by geometry. Canada and the EU already move goods, data, and defense procurement across an ocean with an ease that makes the Atlantic seem, as one delegate put it, “like a hallway.” Asked whether the missing member might one day join, the Prime Minister’s office said the door is open. The door, everyone noted, is in a building the missing member has not been given directions to.

At a press conference Friday, a reporter asked the EU’s top diplomat directly whether the alliance was formed without the United States. She said the alliance was formed for the future. The question was not answered, which in diplomacy is the same thing, only slower.

ALLIANCE FOR THE FUTURE: STARTER KIT

  • Founding members: Canada and the European Union (27 nations, counting the ones that complain about being counted)
  • Membership model: "Variable geometry" — bring your own shape
  • Motivation: a world "shaken by new storms"
  • Storms named at the summit: 0
  • Applications: open; processing time varies by geography

The 22nd Canada-EU summit will be held in Europe next year. The location is being decided by variable geometry. It will be somewhere, which is already more than can be said for the alliance’s founding meeting, where the map was unveiled and one continent’s largest country was, with great courtesy, not on it.