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EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
401–410 of 878 posts
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#402The EU is running out of Europe. I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
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Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#403Earlier quoted context omitted.
And if Trump had just faded into obscurity after 2021 we probably wouldn't see this kind of realignment, but the fact he got reelected makes it look much less like a fluke and more like an USA that's increasingly unreliable on the international stage
Not giving you what you want != unreliable. It’s been extremely reliable for folks that want other things.
I was gonna post my actual thoughts but then had a vision of me being show this comment at the border as the reason I can't enter the US.
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#404No 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. :)
Just want to chip in: I love you "yanks", not so much your politics and your imperialistic tendencies, but nearly all Americans I met were nothing but kind (coast to coast, left or right).
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#405Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
Don't you see that the same bureaucracy that adds friction to entrepreneurship also serves the purpose of protecting the incumbents? It is odious to start a company in the EU. There are many accounts of this on HN itself.
Starting a company is not the hard part of staring a company in any country. Many many companies do exist in the EU. It might be annoying but it's obviously hardly insurmountable.
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#406If that be the case, maybe we the USA ought to take the UK and Ireland as an associate state of the USA.
> ought to take No one is taking anything here, but I think the american mind cannot comprehend complex things such as having allied and building agreements
American here. Only a third of us are MAGA. Still plenty to ruin our country though.
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#407Earlier quoted context omitted.
I'm afraid you're mistaking our lunatic leader with "us". Understandable, but this step will be wholly unnecessary as soon as December when his power will be checked (largely). I lean right, more libertarian small government type, so you're not hearing this from a blowhard on the American left. His foreign policy, the way he's treated friends has been wanton and immensely damaging, and a whole lot of us want this cor…
The majority of US voters like the guy. He represents the country, like it or not. Most of his voters still agree with all the stuff he's doing, and the opposition seems intent on sabotaging themselves as much as possible so he will likely win again this year.
The majority of US voters do not like the guy. 58.1% disapproval, 38.6% approval.
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#408Earlier quoted context omitted.
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 - it means that Charles III is an independent monarch for two separate nations. The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada >the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sove…
I guess if going in the UK gets tough the royals could move somewhere else to reign. Sigismund was king of Sweden and Poland, though he couldn't maintain both. Maybe we'd need some drama with usurpers and uncles and so on to keep the populace entertained. Without the civil war part...
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#409Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Carney was asking for freedom of movement of goods, people and services, but without full monetary and legislative integration. > no payments into each others budget. Not going to happen! To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment. Even when the regimes are basically identical - eg the UK - then the EU doesn't permit i…
It's actually going to raise questions as to why the EU are A-OK with this now when a possible interpretation of associate membership is it's what Cameron was trying to negotiate the UK into when complete inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum. All depends on what an associate member is of course.
I missed the part where the UK was willing to give up all veto and voting rights and still have freedom of movement.
Both of which Canada is ok with.
Re: EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member'
#410Earlier quoted context omitted.
>> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next. Also, obviously an associate membership shouldn't feel more desirable than f…
This makes being involved as little as possible but no more far more attractive than being bound too tightly together though. Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.
How so? Many EU states have benefited enormously from being on the receiving side of EU subsidies, which obviously would be out of the question without full integration. Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland have rejected membership, which essentially means that as EEA members they have to observe all the EU regulations and agreements when it comes to trade, without having any say about them. They have their reasons, but those reasons don't apply generally.
"Being misled" is obviously nonsense that deserves no further comment.