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EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

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101–110 of 877 posts

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#101
post #88
post #75

No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)

> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes EU has such a bad name in these circles. As a EU citizen, I cherish these same regimes.

Yup. Oh no, my meat isn't pumped full of hormones and vacuums aren't allowed to be hearing-damagingly loud. The horror..

Also re: OP, yes if you want to sell stuff in the EU, you will need to adhere to the same rules as EU companies.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#102
post #88
post #75

No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)

> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes EU has such a bad name in these circles. As a EU citizen, I cherish these same regimes.

How dare the EU try to preserve competitive open markets. We can’t have capitalism in the leveragist serfdom economy!

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure, if I see the example of US as federation, it might work well for corporations only, but people have nothing, uniformity doesn't work because not all populations have the same needs/expectations

Maybe, but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU. Not because I think regulations are bad. But regulations need to be well designed with clears lines on what the Federal / State are allowed to do.

> but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU.

They are working in it: https://www.eu-inc.org/

I have no clue whether that will be a success, but at least they have recognised that problem as well.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#104
post #91

I’m not sure this is a good thing for Canada. The EU feels like an incomplete experiment. Not strong enough to actually be a single market. But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones. The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.

> The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive. EU already has uniform regulations, what are you talking about? It's also the third largest economy in the world, as uncompetitive as it is.

The EU is not a fiscal union. It is also not yet a single capital market.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#105
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan. Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.

Sure, but Turkey is also an authoritarian autocracy, which I think might be a bit of a problem for the EU.

That won't be a problem for long. The native Europeans are swinging to the authoritarian right, the newly naturalized are very selectively for liberal democracy - aka the parts that directly benefit them, not the parts that make it liberal, and the liberal democrats are straight out refusing to have kids.

So in 50 years Tukey will border authoritarian regime either way.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#106
post #75

No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)

Carney was asking for freedom of movement of goods, people and services, but without full monetary and legislative integration.

So, easier to sell stuff, easier to buy stuff, free to just travel to/from Canada/EU and work there with no extra paperwork, free to buy and sell service from Canada to EU and vice versa.

No Euro, no vote in EU, no ECJ, no payments into each others budget.

Tighter integration than UK, not as tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.

Common defense was already agreed anyhow.

I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. Although, no joke, a lot of peoples first reaction is: "They need to compete in Eurovision first. Otherwise they should wait for Australia to join first."

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I am not sure, if I see the example of US as federation, it might work well for corporations only, but people have nothing, uniformity doesn't work because not all populations have the same needs/expectations

Maybe, but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU. Not because I think regulations are bad. But regulations need to be well designed with clears lines on what the Federal / State are allowed to do.

> but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU

Been doing it for decades. Not a billionaire and not interested in becoming one; in the US I would've been one. But never had issues.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#108
post #42

Good, if the middle power democracies don't align/work together they are going to get torn apart in the struggle between the US and China.

70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?

Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic.

Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import.

Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#109
post #75

No idea what this actually means, if it means easier trade, I'm all for anything that reduces our dependency on the yanks, as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes. The Americans are no longer our friends, Salut, mes amis Européens. :)

Hopefully Canada can just get the economic benefits and not end up having to be subject to the insane stuff like Chat Control

Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'

#110
post #6

Good, if the middle power democracies don't align/work together they are going to get torn apart in the struggle between the US and China.

One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly. If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.

"If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves."

If they were to change some within the citizenry would stand to gain at the expense of others. Inequality would increase.

Seems—for now—middle democracies aren't prepared to pay the high price of social upheaval such a policy would create.

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