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

bbc.com

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

#691

Post by ttul »

teekert wrote: post #404
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. :)

Just want to chip in: I love you "yanks", not so much your politics and your imperialistic tendencies, but nearly all Americans I met were nothing but kind (coast to coast, left or right).

Every "yank" I know is also pretty great. The problem is a political system that has entrenched an advantage for a party that would otherwise be consistently in the minority, reducing the ability of the center to moderate policy.

Canadians are right to be skeptical that the next presidency will be significantly better than the current one. A serious amount of goodwill has been burned and I think the average view up north is that it's time to build a very solid backup plan.

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

#692

Post by awakeasleep »

rich_sasha wrote: post #677

Soon, Canada might overtake Finland in having the longest NATO border with a hostile country…

But it will probably be a long time till Canada purposefully causes the death of a million civilians in the USA, like Finland did with Leningrad!

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

#693

Post by WarmWash »

lawn wrote: post #125
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.

As a Swede I have a bunch of grievances with the EU but when I look at the US I can't help but feel how lucky I am to live on this side of the pond.

Keep in mind, social media and western online dialogue is extremely US centric. If every country was a house, the US is where everyone meets to party. So every spec of dust spawns endless content for everyone to dig into. Nevermind that people who have the most time to spend on social media, dictate the narratives that are popular.

The reality is that the US better if you have money (like white collar salary man level) and (much) worse if you are an odds-and-ends gig economy type worker (like an influencer).

From the vantage point of a ~75% income bracket home, moving to Europe is almost purely downsides (conventionally, some people give up everything for their dream to live in a cold dank cave), whereas being in a <50% income bracket home, Europe seems like a utopia.

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

#694

Post by rjsw »

fidotron wrote: post #367
corford wrote: post #318

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum. That's a bit of a stretch

It's literally what happened. Cameron was trying to reduce the scope of EU integration with the UK (esp freedom of movement), with the threat he didn't want to use of a referendum, the EU said no (as the other commenter explained partly to disincentivize others, but also because they thought he was bluffing and people would never vote to leave), so the referendum was held.

I think that the EU would be in worse shape today if the UK had followed most other members at the time and restricted freedom of movement to it for the countries that joined in 2004 and 2007. It would have been nice to have got some credit for that.

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

#695

Post by pyrale »

mitxela wrote: post #396
pyrale wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture No, that's just the 2010s propaganda fed to you by people who assert that not letting them do whatever they want is "bureaucratic". These very same people are completely fine lobbying legislature for more moat when they benefit from it. The difference between "middle democracies" or w…

I live in one, it's definitely true. It doesn't mean entrepreneurship doesn't exist, but there is a lot of bureaucracy and the bureaucracy is iron law. They will go to any extreme to make reality align with the bureaucracy. For example if you build a building without permission, the police will come by with a bulldozer, demolish your building, dispose of the remains, and then bill you for it. Even if the building is…

> but there is a lot of bureaucracy and the bureaucracy is iron law.

Yeah, an organized and powerful administration is the basis of rule-of-law system. The opposite isn't entrepreneurship, it's a state of widespread corruption where laws are toothless.

It doesn't benefit upstarts who want a fair environment to start a business, it benefits megacorps with their own militia of lawyers to bend the rules, and pockets deep enough to lobby for the removal of rules that can't be bent.

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

#697

Post by bryanlarsen »

TiredOfLife wrote: post #670
hexagonsuns wrote: post #572

[flagged]

For Canada to be independent and free you need to ask permission from your king first.

Canada gained the right to remove the king in 1982. It would require unanimous consent from Parliament and all 10 provinces.

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

#698

Post by mitxela »

softwaredoug wrote: post #485
mitxela wrote: post #438

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can't deal with 27 different groups of people without dealing with 27 different groups of people or forcibly unifying them to become 1 group. I'm sure you agree the latter is bad.

That’s obviously reductive. They don’t have to be forced. They could mutually agree to unify more strongly

Yes, and they have in some ways, and that's called the EU. They have not unified in every way. For example the French people have not agreed to start eating Surströmming, they do not want to start eating Surströmming, I don't know whether it's even legal there to possess it, and that decision should rightfully be up to them. If you want to sell your Surströmming in France you have to take France into account, you can't just assume your business will be the same everywhere in Europe, and that's not just limited to laws, but also all other facets of culture. For another basic example, you have to have a version of your packaging written in French. The EU is not going to mandate that English packaging is accepted in all countries, for very obvious reasons.

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

#699

Post by AlexandrB »

throwaway283737 wrote: post #481

This is the same EU who once reduced the Canadian trade minister to (literal) tears, and made her denounce the (accurate) fact that, and I quote, "Europe is not capable of signing a trade deal". Notably, the EU has never ratified the Canada FTA and everyone's just sort of pretending it did for convenience's sake. Nice symbolism, but this is merely being used as leverage in Canada's negotiation with the US. "See, we h…

> This is the same EU who once reduced the Canadian trade minister to (literal) tears

Wow. That's really pathetic. I'm ashamed as a Canadian. I don't want someone who can be reduced to tears by a negotiation negotiating on my behalf.

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