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

bbc.com

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

#421

Post by mitxela »

amelius wrote: post #306
rich_sasha wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

> Europe’s biggest problem, I think, is its lost mojo. Europe's biggest problem is that every decision can be vetoed by one of the member states. Which in practice means that the EU has very little power.

No, not every decision made in Europe can be vetoed by any EU member state. Only EU decisions can be vetoed by EU member states.

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

#422

Post by LeBit »

0x10ca1h0st wrote: post #222

If that be the case, maybe we the USA ought to take the UK and Ireland as an associate state of the USA.

The USA would take them by force because there is no way anyone in the world wants to have anything to do with the USA.

But taking someone by force in on brand for Trump, so it might happen.

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

#423

Post by bryanlarsen »

monkeywork wrote: post #302
leidenfrost wrote: post #266

Earlier 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…

It's not just theoretical -- IIUC, if Charles, William and George get hit by the same bus, Charlotte would become Queen of the UK while Louis would become King of Canada.

I'm sure that in that scenario Canada would quickly update their primogeniture laws to give Charlotte primacy over her younger brother, but at the moment the primogeniture laws of the two countries are different.

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

#424

Post by b112 »

throw0101c wrote: post #157
paganel wrote: post #129

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.

> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Which output specifically? To take one example, the Dijon mustard coming out of France is mostly from Canadian mustard seeds: * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijon_mustard#2022_shortage_in...

I want to know the person who grows the celery seeds.

I bought a box 37 years ago, a tiny little box, and I've been using it to season soups, almost weekly that whole time.

There can't be more than one guy that grows those seeds, for the entire planet! So my questions are, first who is this guy, and second is the in the EU?

Also, has anybody else noticed this?

And if you think buying his celery seed farm, don't. It's a very limiting market.

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

#425

Post by mschuster91 »

padjo wrote: post #354
wewewedxfgdf wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Errrrr...... this has nothing to do with the struggle between USA and China. It is 100% about Trump.

This has been brewing since George W Bush. Obama made a valiant attempt at normalising relations with Europe but I don't think any future US president has any hope of reversing this now.

Europe was skeptical ever since 'nam and at the latest Bush Sr's Iraq adventure.

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

#426

Post by gizajob »

fidotron wrote: post #367
corford wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum. That's a bit of a stretch

It's literally what happened. Cameron was trying to reduce the scope of EU integration with the UK (esp freedom of movement), with the threat he didn't want to use of a referendum, the EU said no (as the other commenter explained partly to disincentivize others, but also because they thought he was bluffing and people would never vote to leave), so the referendum was held.

I kind of made a point like this in the other thread - during Brexit it was a very hard No from the EU that they couldn’t negotiate on key points such as freedom of movement, and countries are either IN and have everything the EU comes with, or they’re out. Now, it seems, that Canada is being offered a favourable half-in arrangement simply because they’ve never before been involved. Seems pretty bizarre and arbitrary for the EU, but also totally standard for the EU because it’s bizarre and arbitrary.

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

#427

Post by fidotron »

FabCH wrote: post #409
fidotron wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I am in Canada. There's no evidence Canada is OK with those things.

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

#428

Post by alibarber »

harhargange wrote: post #68

From Blackberry to a budding VFX industry and many other sustainable businesses to come out of Canada has always made it seem like a very EU-like philosophy. This will be great for fair trade.

From having worked extensively in it, the VFX industry, apart from being near to Hollywood in terms of time zone, is surely just a tax rebate competition. Which is actually very non-EU philosophy; member states cannot simply subsidise local industries from tax revenue - it is a single market, other members have to have equal access to your market as your local companies.

Of course there's plenty of ways around it. In the case of film production, if the script calls for the characters to be in a specific location - then it's now a cultural asset that the government can fund with rebates. The person writing the script is of course aware of this and the incentives available.

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

#429

Post by mitxela »

prof-dr-ir wrote: post #361
hilbert42 wrote: post #238

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones." It seems to me the EU is overburdened with trivial regulations (like regulating the maximum power consumption of domestic vacuum cleaners) rather than prioritizing core issues of its single market, manufacturing, trade, etc. Trouble is small vested interests hold overly powerful sway over EU-wide policy. The example above is a cas…

> individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted. People proclaim this with such confidence, especially in the UK before the Brexit years I must say, and yet there are so many arguments against it. First, accepting this goes against a core tenet of the single market, since the single market for vacuum cleaners is now split into 27 little markets. We thus need 27…

Nation states are also free, in practice, to ignore any regulation they don't like and implement their own. Hungary did this for a decade. They usually don't, because there is no benefit to ignoring the more widespread setting on maximum vacuum cleaner power.

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

#430

Post by DaSHacka »

mitxela wrote: post #357
method_capital wrote: post #320

Earlier 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.

> so he will likely win again this year.

What do you mean by this?

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