EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member' • Hacker News Board

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

#511

Post by LastTrain » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #435

neom wrote: 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. :)

I was surprised to learn that Canada doesn't even have free trade across their own provenances. A big benefit of the United States is that it's essentially a very large free trade zone across 50 states. If Canada wanted to facilitate trade, I would imagine they would figure it out internally. So my guess is that this is just giving up some political autonomy for some unknown reason, maybe to stick it to the US?

Until you try shipping perfectly legal industrial hemp across the Idaho border. https://www.idahopress.com/news/local/hemp-truckers-strike-d...

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

#512

Post by georgeecollins » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:04 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #283

klelatti wrote: post #200

Earlier 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.

Why is the EU obligated to treat every country the same way? Canada presents different economic opportunities and challenges than the UK. Or, if you want to say it was due to politics, who was bashing who?

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

#513

Post by newsclues » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

FabCH wrote: post #106

neom wrote: 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…

Easier to fly to Europe from our privatized airports! Sounds great!

The funny thing is that we got this, instead of tangible and needed deregulation within Canada. Another announcement, instead of actual shovels in the ground and making life better for Canadians.

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

#514

Post by rsynnott » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #355

Sharlin wrote: post #321

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The UK already enjoyed a large amount of unique concessions as a full member. The rest of the EU was right not to give in. Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative. No such problem in negotiating tighter integration with nonmembers (and in retrospect, many of the old WP countries should've joined as something like associate membe…

This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future?

Maybe, and that might actually be okay from the EC’s pov. There’s a fairly old proposal for a ‘two speed EU’; a core that accelerates towards near-federalism with a more eurosceptic periphery.

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

#515

Post by post-it » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #221

post-it wrote: post #146

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Where there's a will, there's a way. There hasn't been a will until now.

The only "way" involves greasing the palms of every special interest group in the way until they have successfully accounted for the whole potential revenue of the intended enterprise, and that's what blocked everything repeatedly. I'm in Quebec and very familiar with the exact territory this has applied to wrt getting resources out on the east coast, and unless someone was willing to rule by decree to bypass all tho…

They'll ship it out of Churchill. The only special interest groups are Indigenous and they rarely successfully hold up projects that are actually important.

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

#516

Post by vrganj » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

drstewart wrote: post #168

Barrin92 wrote: post #41

I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave. In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength i…

>we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave. Really? Because there's this organisation called CUSMA that nations can voluntarily leave (the US) and some want to stay in (Canada). It's economy is larger than the EU btw.

CUSMA is just a trade deal, not a full-on organization like the EU.

If we're doing a trade deal measuring contest, I will just point out that the EU has the world's largest free trade network, including Canada (already), South Korea, most of Latin America, India etc etc.

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

#517

Post by philipallstar » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

FabCH wrote: post #106

neom wrote: 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…

The main negative of the EU is people can migrate through it to get to your country, like the UK's small boats crisis. Canada, being so far from the EU, doesn't have that unique disadvantage. Which is good news for Canada if this does end up working.

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

#518

Post by sheepjumpmoons » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

debugnik wrote: post #484

gpvos wrote: post #304

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not really with the US anymore. Anyway, I think you missed this reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement

Does it really count as non-aligned if the observer states are very much aligned?

The point was non alignment with the two superpowers.

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

#519

Post by jeroenhd » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:05 PM UTC

graemep wrote: post #44

N_Lens wrote: post #8

Australia is also seeking a closer alliance with EU and Canada. The world is moving on to a post Us-hegemony era. All it took was Trump & Republicans

The world was already moving on from US hegemony. China is already a super power, other economies are growing, and the west in general (i.e. all the countries mentioned here) are a shrinking proportion of the world economy (and population, or military strength).

The collapse of the USA as the world leader was already happening, but plenty of countries were under the impression the USA and the other western countries were working together to save the sinking ship.

The USA did plenty of offensive stuff before that (like a full campaign labeling the French as cowards for not supporting their baseless war in the middle east), but it took until Trump and his unhinged behaviour for the world to see how bad the situation really was.

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

#520

Post by FabCH » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 1:06 PM UTC

fidotron wrote: post #427

FabCH wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Fair enough.

It’s what the newspapers report:

https://www.wsj.com/world/europe/canada-alliance-eu-carney-2...