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Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

independent.co.uk

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Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#21

Post by spiralpolitik »

bhaak wrote: post #10

That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well). There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now. Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect. Half of the right wing influen…

While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form.

The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.

I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#22

Post by someperson »

nl wrote: post #5

Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union. Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins. The downside of this is that A…

A big part of what makes Australia a better performing economy is maintaining high population growth rate of 1.5%, mostly through immigration.

Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.

https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#23

Post by akudha »

FlowingRiver wrote: post #3

It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more. This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowl…

India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.

From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.

Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#24

Post by kimos »

bjt12345 wrote: post #8

The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news. Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.

There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#25

Post by willsmith72 »

bjt12345 wrote: post #8

The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news. Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.

you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#26

Post by willsmith72 »

spiralpolitik wrote: post #21
bhaak wrote: post #10

That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well). There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now. Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect. Half of the right wing influen…

While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form. The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out. I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.

to be fair until we know what associate member means, there might not be any contradiction to the UK position

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#28

Post by cosmic_cheese »

mindwok wrote: post #12

As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US. This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown…

From the American side it felt like we had more cross-pollination with Australia in the 90s than in the decades following. Disney even had a studio out there that animated some of the TV shows it aired in the US (and presumably in Australia too).

Not sure what changed.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#29

Post by akarpenko »

bethekidyouwant wrote: post #16

Canada is just trying to encourage Europe to invest in Canada which is fine I suppose… all the power to Europeans if they want to invest their money here instead of the US… but I am not holding my breath

What money? Their economic growth is half of the US and with strong headwinds. EU GDP is also smaller than the US by far.

Re: Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

#30

Post by latexr »

drekipus wrote: post #15
mindwok wrote: post #12

As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US. This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown…

I don't believe that. Can you find this survey you were talking about?

Basic web search for “australia survey closest international friend” returned https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/australias-best-friend...
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