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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'

#561

Post by Maskawanian »

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?

What is a provenance WRT Canada? :-) But it is true, our provinces have trade barriers internally that is an ongoing source of dispute. There has been movement since the USA started falling apart to remove them. The dumbest one was that hay bales had to be re-arranged on the AB/BC border.

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

#562

Post by squidbeak »

haunter wrote: post #148

Wonder how does Morocco feel about this becasue they applied to be an actual full memeber before s and they are geographically closer too. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morocco%E2%80%93European_Union...

Full membership isn't Association Membership. The article you reference mentions that the EU condemned Morocco for human rights abuses in 2023. So perhaps Morocco should clean that up before feeling anything about this.

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

#563

Post by lII1lIlI11ll »

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?

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

Presumably by "half of the EU" you mean (sometimes) euro-sceptic states like Hungary or Poland? Well, these are not in EU because some illuminati/lizard people tricked them into joining and now won't allow them to leave, like some of their politicians would like you to believe, but because they enjoy billions of subsidies per year.

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

#564

Post by Jackpillar »

Autious wrote: post #99
dmos62 wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes EU has such a bad name in these circles. As a EU citizen, I cherish these same regimes.

Yeah, I'm curious about which ones are a problem. I could see there being some incompatibility, and the details are more interesting than sweeping statements. Some regulations would have to be normalized and agreed upon between the countries for trade open up. Can't have different quality standards and ways of evaluating and declaring them.

You're on a tech-focused Silicon Valley based news forum. Most people here think if you're not carte blanche allowing your Ai companies unfettered hyperscale economy-threatening death spiral infrastructure investments for a nebulous end goal that benefits a small minority with undertones of civilizational collapse and mass unemployment then you're a over-regulatory nanny-state that is crushing innovation.

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

#565

Post by david-gpu »

huijzer wrote: post #447
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. :)

> 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.

On day-to-day interactions with my coworkers, I had no problem working with Americans.

At the same time, a lot of them voted in favor of foreign policies that I very strongly disagree with.

Both can be true at the same time, and the former doesn't make me forget the latter. Especially when their president continues to voice threats against the sovereignty of my country.

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

#566

Post by jeroenhd »

ReptileMan wrote: post #83

Von Der Leyen has a stellar track record of successes in both internal and external EU affairs. She is an inexhaustible well of good ideas and great policies. When such suggestion comes from her I am sure it is great idea for both Canada and EU.

Mercosur, sanctions against Russia and Belarus, defence of France after the AUKUS fiasco, an intent to cut down reliance on natural gas, an ethics commission following the Qatari corruption scandal, the European green deal, European defence plans, she's done plenty of good.

She's also done plenty of bad things on the political theatre, but it's not like everything she does is destined to be a failure.

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

#567

Post by [deleted] »

PyWoody wrote: post #469
musha68k wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From Glenn Gould to Wayne Gretzky, from ATI to AdLib and Matrox we've always loved Canadian "exports" here in the EU. Let's work together!

You might want to look into Gretzky's political beliefs before "importing" him.

[deleted]

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

#568

Post by preisschild »

embedding-shape wrote: post #346
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…

> To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment. Doesn't seem to be true anymore, at least in every case. See the EU-Mercosur agreement for one recent exception to this, the goods we're now importing from South America don't have the same regulatory environment by far, to many of our local farmers.

EU-Mercosur products need to comply with the EU's food safety standards (SPS1)

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

#569

Post by jeromegv »

fidotron wrote: post #388
teamonkey wrote: post #337

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don’t think Cameron did much serious negotiation on this front. He resigned the evening of the referendum results. It was a deliberate choice by his successors to pursue a hard Brexit. A softer Brexit was always possible and likely would have been more acceptable to the EU, as it would have had less financial impact and disruption to trade.

That's what happened afterwards. The referendum was triggered by a failed negotiation between Cameron and the EU in the first place.

The referendum was triggered by him making a bad political calculation that he would win it and could squash the aisle of his party that was pushing his idea. This was never truly due to a failed negotiation. The hardliners in his party wanted entirely out either way.

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

#570

Post by ericmay »

huijzer wrote: post #447
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. :)

> 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.

Thanks - you are right and have the much more mature perspective. Many want to further drive a wedge between the US and Europe, presumably they live in Moscow and Beijing and Tehran.
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