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

bbc.com

271–280 of 878 posts

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

#271

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them. But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaste…

Yeah, the scandal is about different members being held to different standards. Why are Azerbaijan and Israel allowed to stay while Russia got kicked out? Especially since Azerbaijan and Israel both have manipulated the voting in addition to waging wars.

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

#273

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> and legislative integration Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Not sure if this falls under "legislative integration" but I'd say that it would be quite important to have settled. The same goes when it comes to Canada's work-related laws.

It's not an insurmountable problem if they don't have compatibility on standards It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating. It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).

EU signed a free trade agreement with Canada but its never been ratified

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

#274

Maybe this is a naive statement, but it seems like full membership including open borders between Canada and other EU states and adoption of the Euro would also be beneficial to everyone involved. The UK should continue to be embarrassed and ashamed to leave such an incredible institution, although at this point we can say that they clearly don’t deserve the EU anyway.

Yes but someone will need to step in and adjudicate once everyone in Europe has enough of living in the United States of Germany and there’s another war over it.

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

#275

This would be Canada getting down leveled to the minor leagues. Yes there are a few issues with the US, but Canada is vastly better off playing on the world stage under the wings of the US than it would be as the EU’s “associate member.” The next phase of history is going the be China and the US and then everyone else scrambling for scraps.

And won't the dems just undo all this tariff nonsense anyway? Or is Canada acting like a bitter ex after a breakup who vows to take their seething to the grave no matter what

Bitter ex? This is amazing.

The US is a completely broken country, and simply switching governments will not change that. Without a complete and utter change in how that entire country operates -- including dissolution -- no country should ever normalize relations with it again.

The US is by far the world's most dangerous rogue nation. It is a terroristic nation. It is a bully. It not only elected a rapist self-dealing criminal imbecile to president, it elected him again, seeking a round two after the utter debacle the first term was, and the disastrous results are exactly what everyone could predict, but you know...this is who America is now.

And a big reason Canada is moving on is that it's pretty clear that the US is a country in spectacular decline, and it is China's century now. Which is maybe why the US is electing disgusting garbage like Trump -- and he's certainly not alone, and there are various garbage "football coach" type creeps filling the entire US political class -- lamenting the position they once held, now going down the Russian/Putin path where they'll accelerate the crash just to reminisce about a past that mostly never existed.

EDIT: I should add that agreements with the US are worthless, and this has been amply demonstrated. As Carney noted, the US' signature is written in pencil, and even agreements signed by this very president mean nothing, and will be dishonoured at the earliest convenience. In recent trade negotiations, where Canada almost made a horrible mistake of accepting ridiculous terms to maintain the status quo as much as possible (sidenote: Canada absolutely must withdraw from USMCA, a Trump-signed and negotiated agreement that the US is in utter defiance of), they asked "so when we sign this, you'll then honour it?", and the US side couldn't even commit to that. They knew that it could be days before the rapist toddler had a twitter tantrum after one of the kleptocrats whispered in his ear and imposed new barriers, tariffs, etc. Like, what is even the point of negotiating with such a farce? A lawless cabal led by just the absolute worst human trash.

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

#276
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. :)

CETA (free trade) already exists with the EU. What is happening here is mostly symbolism and diplomacy. And maybe it will lead to the last hold out EU member states fully ratifying CETA (French farmers famously difficult).

Many people (including Carney himself) are presenting this as a fundamental and recent pivot.

But the opening moves of this happened a long time ago. CETA was negotiated by Chrystia Freeland and the now-often-maligned Trudeau gov't.

(also Trudeau also had a honeymoon phase for the first two to three years of his term...)

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

#277
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AFAIK Charles III is the monarch both for UK and Canada. Doesn't this mean that Canada is, in a certain degree, dependent of UK?

No, he’s just the monarch of two different countries simultaneously.

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

#278

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 is an ongoing experiment as well.

Europe’s biggest problem, I think, is its lost mojo. There’s plenty of good ingredients, plenty of challenges too. It can still go either way. Hell, at this rate it might outperform simply because US and China blow up due to domestic problems.

The thing about mojo is that it’s super hard to predict. It might stay where it is and Europe’s share of global GDP might decline to nothing. Or it might rekindle out of nowhere due to some impulse.

Either way, middle democracies are a somewhat threatened species now, and from their individual PoV an imperfect union might be much better than efficiently staying on their own.

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

#279
post #196

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US governance has become so unreliable, destructive and inane, with little prospect of reverting back to what is once was, given the US’ internal political and societal landscape, that being under its “wings” now constitutes a major risk for any of its allies. Canada is correct to diversify.

I hear you, but the US is hardly the only country on the planet that’s had a few disruptive elections, including the EU BTW. Making generational decisions over one presidential cycle is rather short sighted.

Two actually*

Mistakes happen but this same buffoon got elected twice. That's no fluke, deep down the american population likes him enough to give him two chances.

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

#280
post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

AFAIK Charles III is the monarch both for UK and Canada. Doesn't this mean that Canada is, in a certain degree, dependent of UK?

No. We have our own monarch who happens to be the same human is all
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