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

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

#551
post #483

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This potential deal for Canada comes with compromises which would obviously be unacceptable to the UK (e.g. no full voting rights).

Likely as unacceptable to Canadians.

EEA nations (Norway, Iceland etc) have found them acceptable, and preferable to fully joining up.

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

#552
post #435
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?

*Provinces (and territories)

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

#553

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you propose forcing 27 groups of people to become 1 group just so it's easier to sell them things? Culture in Europe is more on sustainable business rather than hypergrowth, but you can expand to other countries too. You just have to have a business strategy catering to all the groups you want to cater to. I think it's good the supermarket chains in France and in Germany are mostly disjoint sets, it keeps competit…

I’m just telling you the tradeoffs you’ve chosen. You can’t be an economic superpower in the current regime. Without your own “hypergrowth” you’ll always be dominated by the hypergrowth of competitors like the US and China. You’ll be in orbit of other powers instead of creating your own gravity. Where am I wrong?

To pivot a bit from the point above: I'm not sold on the core premise of the need for "hypergrowth." I think the American economy has been an incredible engine for productivity and I mostly agree that there's a lot of things that get in the way of the same in the EU and other countries. But I look around the U.S. and wonder what exactly the goal is if it's not actually giving everyone safer, more comfortable lives.

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

#554
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. :)

> The Americans are no longer our friends We say as Europeans while interacting daily with USA engineers and other people here on HN - a site ran by Silicon Valley investors - while we usually talk about USA-made software. I personally do not hold every American accountable for the actions of their government.

I think this is speaking from the perspective of nations/governments rather than individual citizens.

For what it’s worth, as an American, I agree with them. The USA is proving to be unreliable, if not outright malicious, to our long term allies.

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

#555

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.

The explanation is easy: Canada is not on the European continent. The EU can only extend full membership to countries on the continent, so Canada needs a special arrangement. And because there's a whole ocean serving as a reason for this special treatment, it's easy to argue that it won't extend to countries who can become full members.

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

#557

Imagine what the EU reaction would be if the United States offered to make bring in the UK or Poland as state(s). Geopolitical games like this are how real wars eventually start.

Did you miss the part where the US president said he would annex Canada against their will?

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

#558

At one point, 20 years back, I was joking that The Netherlands should quit the EU and join the USA as the 51st state. Lot less appealing in the current political climate, but for technology it'd be great. My point was that the constitution of the US is based on ideas, and the country could be open to any territory, independent of location, whereas all of Europe's countries are based on more on historical artifacts. F…

>My point was that the constitution of the US is based on ideas, and the country could be open to any territory, independent of location

It seems you do not know anything about Puerto Rico and its history of shameful US meddling.

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

#560
post #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…

What actually _is_ the deal? Nobody in this thread seems to have any idea what the specifics are, which matters a lot. It sounds like we're still at the "very early talks" stage? Less integration than even Norway (EEA)?
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