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

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

#831

Post by dghlsakjg » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

mytailorisrich wrote: post #800

dghlsakjg wrote: post #787

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Bluster has a connotation of empty threats and loudness for the sake fo loudness. Canada has been making real moves, and doing it quietly. In the past year non-US exports have grown by a record 11%. New trade and defense deals have been signed with more than 20 countries. Whatever is going on in Ottawa, bluster is not the word for it.

Not Canada, it is Von Der Leyen who took upon herself to use this " associate member " term and even EU countries are surprised not least because of basically whhat I explained earlier [1]. [1] https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-capitals-mark-carney-ursu...

Ah. I thought you were saying that Canada's pivots outside the US were anti trump bluster.

No idea about the EU side rhetoric, but it may not be bluster considering that Canada has huge potash and oil/gas reserves that could replace Kremlin aligned sources in the EU (and the defense deal that Canada just announced with Ukr.).

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

#832

Post by FabCH » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:22 PM UTC

carlob wrote: post #678

FabCH wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

> Although, no joke, a lot of peoples first reaction is: "They need to compete in Eurovision first. Otherwise they should wait for Australia to join first." What? First time I hear of this. Honestly, Eurovision doesn't really have anything to do with the EU. We all know the main sponsor is from a non-EU country whose participation is much more controversial than Canada anyway.

Because Eurovision is this cultural joke that unifies all of Europe in this yearly cultural moment of absolute madness.

And the EU treaties refuse to define what „European“ means, so using „watches Eurovision“ as a rule of thumb is surprisingly workable as a definition of where the borders of „Europe“ end.

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

#833

Post by hermitShell » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:24 PM UTC

rich_sasha wrote: post #536

hermitShell wrote: post #351

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are deeper structural problems when you look at the incentives inherent to government driven society. While I do appreciate and even support the idea that the immense wealth available on planet earth should be more evenly distributed, and people should mostly be focused on raising families, deepening their philosophy, and perfecting their craft... (some societies in Europe are pretty laid back in terms of hyper…

Dunno. My impression is that with the EU, we pick its suboptimal parts and compare them to what they could be with optimal execution. We don’t look either at the successful parts, not at the world where it is wholesale gone. My gut feeling is that EU members are, on the whole, much better off for being in than out. One natural experiment is the UK - opinions differ, but the drastic accumulation of problems coincides…

People sometimes call EU the sleeping giant. Big potential compared to the actual results.

I'm more aware of what Canadian government does with its tax dollars. And I'm just assuming that the EU is similarly quite expensive for what it achieves, and the budgets only change in one direction.

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

#834

Post by teamonkey » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:31 PM UTC

theplumber wrote: post #589

fidotron wrote: post #388

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

This is was about immigration. I don’t understand why people are still in denial about this. I am pretty sure it would have happened anyway regardless of what economic concessions UK would have got. It’s worth to note that the immigration is still an issue in the UK and the EU and I think more EU members will leave because of this.

It was about money.

People were poor, wages had hardly grown after years of austerity following the 2008 crash. A huge campaign pointed the finger squarely at the EU: they are taking our money, they are the reason you’re poor, you would be richer without them.

People believed them.

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

#835

Post by bigyabai » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

snapplebobapple wrote: post #826

My country has fallen so far... dealing with the government and regulators in the usa, canada, and the eu. I can tell you the eu is pretty clearly bottom tier for competency, effectiveness and even justimplementation that makes sense. Usa is the best of the three surprisingly and canada is mid mostly because it is too lazy to suck as bad as the eu

> dealing with the [...] regulators in the usa

> Usa is the best of the three surprisingly

As a US citizen, I'd rather our regulators copied Europe's consumer protections. American businesses do not respect privacy or free market economics, and it is destroying the tech sector.

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

#836

Post by bryanlarsen » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:34 PM UTC

softwaredoug wrote: post #443

mitxela wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The EU shouldn't become the US. EU countries are sovereign, with the practical right to completely ignore what the EU tells them to do, and this is a good thing for now. If an EU country legalizes weed, federal troopers do not march in, arrest all the weed dispensary owners and march them to federal prison because those things don't exist.

Ok but you have to accept that means an EU country works with a hand tied behind its back. In the US I can start a company and instantly have a market of 350M. Start a company in an EU country, then try to expand to another country, it’s a nightmare. That company will have a lower upper bound on market size. The EU might be a success in coordinating on regional issues, but I don’t think it’s yet an asset to the Europ…

It's a mixed bag. A European or Canadian company generally builds products for export from day one, giving them a market size of 8B and avoiding surprising and expensive footguns the American company hits when trying to expand outside America.

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

#837

Post by rich_sasha » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:36 PM UTC

hermitShell wrote: post #833

rich_sasha wrote: post #536

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dunno. My impression is that with the EU, we pick its suboptimal parts and compare them to what they could be with optimal execution. We don’t look either at the successful parts, not at the world where it is wholesale gone. My gut feeling is that EU members are, on the whole, much better off for being in than out. One natural experiment is the UK - opinions differ, but the drastic accumulation of problems coincides…

People sometimes call EU the sleeping giant. Big potential compared to the actual results. I'm more aware of what Canadian government does with its tax dollars. And I'm just assuming that the EU is similarly quite expensive for what it achieves, and the budgets only change in one direction.

EU budget is actually quite small - about 1% of GDP.

That’s very small compared to EU members states national budgets, which sit at around 35% of GDP, apparently. Canadian federal government apparently spends 18-20% of Canadas GDP, topped up by local governments.

This is all very apples-to-oranges but doesn’t support the thesis that EU budget is particularly bloated.

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

#838

Post by throwaway894345 » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:44 PM UTC

LastTrain wrote: post #823

throwaway894345 wrote: post #801

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nah, they're independent and they've swung pretty hard away from MAGA once it affected their personal finances. Far from noble, but also pretty far from MAGA.

Nah, if you voted for him three time you’re MAGA for the purposes of this thread, which is basically a response to someone saying “all you Americans are dumb assholes”

I think we mostly disagree about whether "dumb assholes" is a boolean or continuous variable.

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

#839

Post by gizajob » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 6:56 PM UTC

rsynnott wrote: post #773

gizajob wrote: post #292

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That can’t happen though because they’d be without a currency in the interim period and it’s also baked in to the EU’s treaties to make this difficult else places like Catalonia and the Basque Country would break away and join the EU, so there are barriers in place to make this less than quick or easy.

> because they’d be without a currency in the interim period From independence 1922 to 1979 (when we joined the EMS) Ireland just used a currency pegged to Sterling. An independent Scotland would presumably use a newly-created currency pegged to either Sterling or the Euro, on at least a temporary basis. Spain have dropped their threats to veto Scottish accession: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/apr/02/spai…

You really think contemporary Scots are going to be alright with that? If we’re saying that Brexit has been economically disastrous for Britain then it seems exiting the UK could be even worse. I’d support the Scots doing it though if they manage to vote for it in a third referendum.

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

#840

Post by cmrdporcupine » Wed, Sep 16, 2026, 7:02 PM UTC

Henchman21 wrote: post #803

cmrdporcupine wrote: post #336

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Both of these things can be true (and things we as Canadians have to aggressively oppose) but at the same time, it was the US that pioneered such gems as: the PATRIOT act, Stellar Wind, PRISM & Section 702 (FAA), Upstream Collection & AT&T Splitter Rooms (Room 641A), Bulk Telephony Metadata (Section 215, the Post-9/11 NYPD Demographics Unit, the Data Broker Loophole (Commercial Surveillance Purchase). Oh god, I could…

As an American I can tell you absolutely people around me are entirely delusional. It’s sad to see and I know I am not immune. Near as I can tell we are , in fact, the baddies .

There are no good guys. The foxes are in charge of the hen house in every country. E.g. Carney is using all of this as a chance to completely gut every climate change initiative possible and slash corporate taxes, shore up existing Canadian oligopolies etc. etc. The nationalism is a drug which can be used by elites in all places for their own purposes.

It's just a matter of degrees I guess.