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 tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. 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."
A lot of this is about resource access, and that can't be magically conjured. You can have all the industry and business you want to put on paper, but this is a tangible concern for Europe where they require these things from a stable and trusted nation with a similar regulatory and political environment.
This trade matter is likely going to require a new type of agreement that has some special privileges not extended in any other case for both parties.
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 UK already enjoyed a large amount of 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 members at first…)
> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative.
Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next.
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 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.
> 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.
Technlogy? That would likely result in a US market crash the likes of which has never been seen before. Look at what percentage of the stock market is the magnificent 7. Now imagine what would happen to that if US tech giants were no longer allowed to sell their products/services in the EU. The market is fragile as it is with the AI bubble going on.
Trade? That cuts both ways, and the US economy and cost-of-living crisis doesn't give them lots of wriggle room.
Products? China will be all to happy to step into whatever market is thus competition-free, not to mention the impact this would have on US businesses.
Also, being a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) "Associate Member" is the name for the mechanism that allowed Australia, Canada and other countries to be admitted into Eurovision.
If you've been around the ESC scene, you know there's a lot of embassy involvement (parties in embassies are a thing), the scene is catnip for those interested in politics, the politically active, and to some extent politicians. Eurovision is also one mechanism for discussions of economic development. Hosting the contest is usually an excuse for upgrades to public infrastructure.
And there's Eurovision Asia starting in November. South Korea is an Associate Member of the EBU, for example.
Australia has managed a 2nd and a 4th from 11 entrants. Our voting participation is quite low though, as the voting windows are usually at awkward AEST times and the main Australian broadcast of the contest is delayed until our primetime.
No - it means that Charles III is an independent monarch for two separate nations.
The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person.
>the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sovereign's role as monarch of Canada has been distinct from their position as monarch of any other realm,[n 4][16][65][66][67] including the United Kingdom.[n 6][69][70][71][72] Only Canadian federal ministers of the Crown may advise the sovereign on any and all matters of the Canadian state,[n 7][70][73][74][75][76][77] of which the sovereign, when not in Canada, is kept abreast by weekly communications with the federal viceroy.[78] The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution and, in Canada, became a Canadian,[40][79][80][81] or "domesticated",[82] establishment, though it is still often denoted as "British" in both legal and common language,[40] for reasons historical, political, and of convenience.
These countries choose voluntarily to hold ties with the UK, and each other, and some accept the UK's monarch as nominal head of state, but don't be mistaken; they are all fully independent countries. Some are republics, some are kingdoms with their own monarch. They value each other's friendship, shared values and heritage, but they're not beholden to the UK or each other.
Being an Associate Country (or Associate State) doesn't guarantee visa-free travel (ask how we know), yet I'm sure that Canadians will get it served on a silver platter.
To "join" the EEA both sides/parties of it has to agree, so yes, members do have a say, it's beneficial (and should be) to both parties of the agreements.
For one this seems related to EU the umbrella organization, not Europe the continent, while I suppose the European Economic Area might be geographically limited to Europe the continent. Maybe something like the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) might be more applicative here.
I think free movement of people doesn’t imply Schengen Zone style borders - I thought this was mostly an economic lever that people can move and work in another country by default, not a human right where a country cannot exclude chosen people (known criminals, etc) and track all crossings. I think of it as another country giving me a visa is opt-out for that country, not opt-in.
The CE rules are relatively sane and followed commonly right? At least I see a lot of CE-stamped goods in Australia… so I always assumed that was the case.
Not all of the EU is in schengen, but we do have freedom of movement. Ireland for example is not in Schengen and never will be because of our travel arrangements with the UK.
It has to be like Norway/Switzerland/Iceland or more to get any free movements of goods and services. Level of access goes hand in hand with integration in term of regulation, etc.
"Associate member" actually sounds like TIGHTER integration than Norway/Switzerland/Iceland, which are not members at all. Switzerland is not even in the EEA. It is a very bad term, actually as Canada cannot be an EU member (it isn't in Europe) and if they don't want or can't join the EEA then that leaves a Switzerland-like deal, which is purely bilateral.
Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Not sure if this falls under "legislative integration" but I'd say that it would be quite important to have settled. The same goes when it comes to Canada's work-related laws.
It's not an insurmountable problem if they don't have compatibility on standards
It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating.
It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).
> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?
It might not be as strict anymore, as the EU-Mercosur Agreement seemingly ended up relaxing a bit on the strict norms and regulations. Many farmers were/are protesting this agreement exactly because the farmers in South America would compete against local farmers who are more strictly regulated.
So, seems we're a bit flexible on that front, when push comes to shove :)
In the past years it has become pretty clear that even the mainstream right wingers/neoliberals of the EU (ie. the EPP) appear to be ready and willing to drop or loosen all kinds of annoying ethical, environmental, and consumer protection regulations at a moment's notice if it helps large corporations make more money.
>>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.
This version of EU integration is more popular than EU itself in significant part of EU right now.
> Tighter integration than UK, not as tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
This will not work as Norway and Switzerland pay. I am unsure about the UK whether they pay or not, but anything else would be unfair to Norway and Switzerland.
> Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
Where and how? Surely not via the EU because the EU has no power over that. See how Austria is part of the EU but militarily neutral.
> I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. 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."
Canada is much more appreciated than the USA here, but you need to look at all fine details. Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour. Nothing against Canada moving closer to the EU, mind you, but this here seems a lot more show-value centered than "show us the details". Because what are the exact details here? I am all in favour of countries cooperating more now that the USA has gone fully rogue, but politicians love show and entertainment.
Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.
> Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.
Eligibility to compete is not based on country, but my membership to the European Braodcasting Union of which Israel is a member, and Australian SBS is an associate member and was allowed to compete as a special case.
Don't bring Eurovision into it. Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.
Agree, any country in the world should be able to participate in ESC, as long as the country agrees with peace, love and understanding. So yes, please ban Israel as soon as possible, together with any other countries that don't share these three very basic principles, that seemingly is easy for all the other participants to follow.
Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them.
But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaster got kicked out for Russia doing bad things (fair enough) but Israel's was kept in despite their government doing even worse things.
Yeah, the scandal is about different members being held to different standards. Why are Azerbaijan and Israel allowed to stay while Russia got kicked out? Especially since Azerbaijan and Israel both have manipulated the voting in addition to waging wars.
Yeah, Azerbaijan is another which is often forgotten. Honestly, it seems Eurovision is mostly interesting for countries that need PR help. I'd be happy to see the whole thing go, it's outlived what little purpose it had.
The EU is likely to develop a military at some point and has some defence cooperation. if you do not trust the US, that means you cannot rely on NATO, which means you need some alternative.
> Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour.
I agree. It might be meant as a threat to influence US policy.
Yes, and it might be a good idea. It should probably not be part of the EU though - there are a number of non-EU countries you would want in a European NATO such as the UK, Norway and Iceland.
I have such fatigue from listening to the rhetoric and whining from US farmers when enough of their goods are dangerous for consumers and illegal in Canada and the EU.
It's all bad faith from the US trying to run over any market they don't control so they can weaponize control over food supply of another nation later.
I don't mind countries setting their own rules for the food they want to consume, and for sure the EU can be overly bureaucratic.
On the other hand, the US is the only country I've been to where I have purchased milk in a completely sealed plastic container, and it was rancid when I opened it. Upstate New York is proud of their local and organic produce, but they are selling rancid milk in stores like that's a normal thing. That was a shock as a visiting Australian.
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.
Programmers keep thinking law is if/then, it's not, it's a set of instructions to judges, which may contain obvious errors or conflict with other instructions, which is why we allow humans to interpret them instead of computers.
One I have actually dealt with was VATMOSS. Especially when first introduced it had very low ceilings for registration and actually deterred small businesses from trading across borders.
I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.
Maybe just calibrated poorly. Small enough and IMO the only important rule is no sharing with others. That should always be strictly enforced. But why worry about how some small timer handles my personal data or if I can make various requests of him? The stakes are too small to matter.
Having health with VATMOSS too my experience is that it was trivial to implement. Maybe your country fucked up the rollout? Here in Sweden I had zero issues.
Its not the country, its the implementation cost for small businesses. In particular the ceiling for registration was so low that even micro-businesses with minimal cross border sales had to comply.
Its would have been trivial for a big business, but it was not for small businesses.
Welcome to Canada where the regulations are in fact provincial.
Canadian provinces have a harder time trading with each other than countries in the EU, although thanks to the sales tax and package transit changes the EU is becoming competitive in this area.
...Those cookie banner things for a start!! heh. ;)
Mostly just wouldn't really work because Ottawa would have to somehow represent the provinces to the EU and the provinces and Ottawa don't work together in a way that would be compatible, I don't think anyone in Canada would want to change how Ottawa works with them. We may also end up in the same position again as we have with the Americans, nobody but us likes our supply management system[1]. GDPR is also something I think Canadians would struggle to get behind, our PIPEDA framework is quite good and I think most folks approve of it (except Quebec, who have their own framework). Taking the Euro would be a problem, etc etc, I think I could probably build quite a big list. btw, I respect the EU regulation, and that Europeans quite like it, I was just saying I don't think it would be practical for us to re-work the whole country to accommodate them, that's all.
A lot of replies confidently explaining ‘what this actually means’ in some detail despite the article saying things like:
> [Canada would be] EU's first "associate member"
> …
> [Von der Leyen] did not give specific details on how any Canadian membership would work, but listed manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security as key areas for cooperation.
> …
> But "associate membership" of the EU does not currently exist and the process, if agreed, could take years.
This is a sinking ship trying to lash unwitting tenders to it to try to keep it afloat while it rams an iceberg. Canada does not need that kind of trouble.
Eased travel and trade, but not full membership voting rights, etc. So basically, an extensive trade and economics agreement, with options to intensify relationships later on.
If a company wants to sell in the EU, they should comply with EU rules. The market and the regulations are closely linked, you won't get one without the other.
I'm afraid you're mistaking our lunatic leader with "us". Understandable, but this step will be wholly unnecessary as soon as December when his power will be checked (largely). I lean right, more libertarian small government type, so you're not hearing this from a blowhard on the American left. His foreign policy, the way he's treated friends has been wanton and immensely damaging, and a whole lot of us want this corrected.
The majority of US voters like the guy. He represents the country, like it or not. Most of his voters still agree with all the stuff he's doing, and the opposition seems intent on sabotaging themselves as much as possible so he will likely win again this year.
> Canada's Bill C-22 Would Force Encryption Backdoors
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
And yet NordVPN and Signal both continue to work in Australia (I don't know who/what Windscribe are), so all other things aside, I suspect this is a hollow threat.
They have not asked yet or companies (Fastmail for example) just provide access and keep quiet.
> Australia passes world’s first law authorizing encryption backdoors
> The law authorizes police to compel companies to create a security vulnerability, often called a backdoor, that would give investigators access to an individual’s communication without that person’s knowledge. It marks a major milestone in the so-called “crypto wars” over the public’s ability to “go dark” via the powerful encryption available on commercial devices.
This is only part of the question though, the other question is is it actually good for the EU to continue growing and becoming more heterogenous indefinitely, which to me isn't at all clear.
You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free
CETA (free trade) already exists with the EU. What is happening here is mostly symbolism and diplomacy. And maybe it will lead to the last hold out EU member states fully ratifying CETA (French farmers famously difficult).
Many people (including Carney himself) are presenting this as a fundamental and recent pivot.
But the opening moves of this happened a long time ago. CETA was negotiated by Chrystia Freeland and the now-often-maligned Trudeau gov't.
(also Trudeau also had a honeymoon phase for the first two to three years of his term...)
I think Canada might have an opportunity to help Europe at least reason a bit about regulations.
For the most part I am thankful that the EU regulates things strictly. As long as I am the consumer of what is regulated and not the maker. Because while the regulation is well meaning, it is not always effective or efficient. And sometimes it achieves absolutely no positive results.
And yet, I am generally for regulating a lot of things.
For instance the cookie-popup-horseshit is failed regulation that came about mainly because regulators were squeamish about real solutions that would have required constant judgement calls. Instead of posing an existential risk to companies that run roughshod over our privacy, they created impotent regulation that is a dual failure: it protects exactly nobody and it wastes everyone's time multiple times over.
Companies that do bad things should face existential risks. It is the only mechanism that works. Fines only work for small players. For large players it is surprisingly often a calculation where the numbers dictate you DO bad things because the downside risk is mostly quantifiable and financially acceptable.
Yes, sanctioning companies guilty of egregious violations of privacy would have been noisy, but it would have been the right thing to do. And it would have been cheaper and more effective than what we have today.
> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes
The only reason the trade is easy in EU (and with it non-EU partners) is these regulations. Countries that choose to stay outside but wanted access to our market (like Norway, Switzerland, etc.) - had to accept the regulations. So I highly doubt you'll get your wish.
> Canada's Bill C-22 Would Force Encryption Backdoors
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
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 go on all day.
Or did/does things like extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo, or the illegal rendition of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to a Syrian torture facility while he was traveling through the US, or even just taking tourists phones and looking at the anti-Trump memes they've shared and detaining them.
Any "libertarian" American pointing fingers at Europe and Canada as somehow more repressive is living in an ideological echo chamber. The targets are (sometimes) different but every "western democracy" set up oppressive regimes post-9/11 that should outrage anybody.
Both "left" and "right" in the US are living in a delusional world if they think their constitution is worth jack shit as any kind of protection in the 21st century.
The EU itself is becoming increasingly integrated with the free movement, common currency, aligned education system etc etc, but these things take a lot of time, not the least identity-wise. For sure, my children feel more European than I did growing up in what was then a non-member state.
So outright membership is likely not the route for overseas friends, but it seems we are inexorably moving towards a closer cooperation between a group of democratic countries outside the sphere of non-democratic China and ever more erratic US. Hopefully this will be an association which is less dependent on one single member than the western world has been under US lead.
It seems very likely the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK would be part of this. Japan and Korea are still very US-dependent but given the lack of enthusiasm the US is showing its former allies, this may change quickly. I also expect growing cooperation with some of the south-American countries.
The world is definitely under realignment politically.
This has been brewing since George W Bush. Obama made a valiant attempt at normalising relations with Europe but I don't think any future US president has any hope of reversing this now.
Trump is a symptom not the disease, when he's gone the people who supported him and voted for him still exist and another Trump-like figure is almost inevitable given they've basically ploughed and planted that field to grow the next one and who's to say NeoTrump isn't going to be smarter.
The other democracies can no longer count on the US as a stable ally the way we have in the past (whether that trust was misplaced is a matter of perspective).
Simply put, you did it twice, We can't rely on them not doing it again.
That's rich considering it was France and the UK that threw Poland under the bus despite having a signed defense pact. The US just came in to clean up the mess.
WW2 ended with Yalta conference where Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's proposition of giving Poland to USSR's sphere of influence, making Poland (and rest of EE) their puppet state.
Churchil wanted to pressure Stalin to leave Poland (and at least parts of EE) independent and even considered "Operation Unthinkable".
At least that's what I think the guy above referenced.
That's pretty much what happened. Trouble was the stakes were already high, if Starlin didn't yield to a bluff (had one been pursued) it would have been an embarrassing backdown and a show of weakness on part of the allies.
"Bluff" because no one other than perhaps Stalin would have followed through—to essentially extend WWII (this time between former allies).
So pragmatism was the order of the day, thus Poland and EE were sacrificed.
If "70% of Canadian exports are to the US", that's probably why the US has so much leverage, and I can see why the Canadian government would like a change.
Hence the need for a rebalancing of trade partnerships.
I'd like to take a closer look at what exactly Canada is exporting to the US, and what exactly the EU is importing from elsewhere, to see if there's a match. I'd rather buy from Canada than from Russia. Or China. Or the US.
Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic.
Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import.
Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
What about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
I’ve always been told don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
The lesson here is that you can’t rely on the US anymore. Not for military protection, not for defence procurement, and not for trade or supply chain. That legacy has ended entirely by choice of the United States.
The problem has moved beyond monetary trade value and into existential risk.
The hardware is produced in Asia but American controlled. its still a dependency on being supplied by American companies.
"Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
Yes, but services are easier to replace than hardware. And control is something you have, and then you don't have if the country in which you operate decides otherwise (or US presidents throws another tantrum).
Companies use AWS because it is there and others used it, so they got ball rolling. It doesn't mean one couldn't replace it with another service, most probably more pricey one. If there would be some kind of war, then one doesn't need to have servers in US, and European ones are right there.
You can't easily replace e.g. lithium or other metals.
Fuel is problematic, but there are places that are closer that could sell them (middle east, if we ignore current Russian state of mind).
As for machinery, it is hard to guess what kind. Germany produces a lot of it, and I would guess China also.
Not sure about pharmaceuticals.
Generally US is not our greatest import partner, China is. And we have a big internal market also.
After decades of globalization, everyone is just extremely dependent on everyone.
I think hardware is a bit complicated by the way. A lot of hardware is also not US controlled. For instance ARM Holdings is British, Japanese, or global depending on how you look at it and quite a lot of vendors rely on ARM's reference designs. Europe also has a lot of important chip designers, but they are more focused on embedded systems and support chips, like NXP and ST Microelectronics.
"Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
Why European governments and increasingly companies are trying to move away to European alternatives. It all starts small, but e.g. a bunch of governments are already disentangling from Office. The sale of the maintainer of the Dutch DigiD infrastructure to a US company has been blocked (would have happened without any blockers a few years ago). Countries are reducing US arms purchases in favor of European alternatives.
It's like turning a mammoth tanker, but it is slowly happening.
Let's just hope we have critical mass before the right-wing populists take over, big tech has been intensively lobbying them in recent years [1]. So much 'for the people', like they always proclaim.
I am not OP and obviously "winning" reduces too many dimensions into one. But I will say that from my recent two visits to the country that I was pretty astonished by the speed at which they are building things. Cars, Buildings, Tech Hubs, Factories. You blink twice and a new tech company plops up somewhere making high end drones or humanoid robots or CNC machines or innovative 3d printers. It feels like there is an absolute abundance of electrical and mechanical engineers in that country and funding to match.
I am not making any comments on the politics of it all, but I have not seen this anywhere else in the world - perhaps it exists but I am not aware of it.
Creativity, innovation, freedom?
10 guys in a room can't compete for long against hundreds of millions or billions pursuing their own separate interests. Sure, they can steal, but they can't create to the same degree if at all.
For some of us, it mimics late 19th century europe where the rate of innovation perhaps was only matched by the lack of regard for cost, safety or need.
I think we are closer to seeing the Chinese Hindenburg than Arpanet or Moon voyage or some other bewildering humanity joining initiative.
Its inarguable that the industrial revolution brought tons of wealth quickly to the UK. But one, having past it all, has to wonder if the child work force, insanely cramped victorian houses, constant deaths due to smog, polluted water etc could not have been entirely avoided by reducing "innovation" speed.
Is the existing suffering of the Chinese system worth the economic growth? For its own middle class, the answer is probably yes. But systemic conditions like limiting the universities places to top 30% students, means you have a permanent underclass that cannot join the white collar jobs.
Is that required to have a cheap, hardworking manufacturing and construction industries? Maybe. But reinventing a class system that has a few steps removed from slavery as an "economic miracle" and "neck breaking speed innovation" feels a bit icky when they could take 5 years longer and treat people better.
We are arguably close to post scarcity, and instead of building post-capitalism instruments (like libraries could be imagined as), we are just perfecting the economic conditions of capitalism which require an inordinate amount of cheap labour and state violence.
Billionaires are building bunkers instead of museums, they can see the end game of this system they benefit from and its not a good one. Like I can't understand whats the point of winning "the economy" if we end up in a post nuclear hellscape of ecological collapse, but number must go up I have been told.
I do not think it was necessary for it to be that bad for the industrial revolution to happen. Possibly displacing agricultural workers through the agricultural revolution and enclosures accelerated it?
It is certainly not necessary for economic development now. You probably cannot give people in less developed economies the same pay and working conditions, but you can provide the basics and relatively decent treatment.
The US has depleted their missile stockpile and can no longer defend anybody. Countries in the Middle East are moving away from the US and forming their own alliances. Taiwan knows that the US cannot do anything to help them. South Korea also knows. The US has weaponized the US Dollar, forcing countries out of the SWIFT system if they don't do what they are told. As a result, the CHIPS system has become the alternative. China understands better how the economy works, with the Belt and Road Initiative. The US government doesn't understand how the economy works, and is run by a bunch of complete m orons.
> China will become the world's reserve currency by 2032.
China doesn’t want this for the same reason that some Americans currently in power don’t want the USD to be the world’s reserve currency - it comes with an export and trade cost.
There are also many structural and political reasons why the Yuan can’t play this role not least of which are transparency, the peg and monetary supply independence.
Reserve currency status entirely depends on whether the issuing authority has the ability to drop a munition (literally or figuratively) on the head of anyone who dares to counterfeit the currency.
China's military and soft influence are improving but until they get that good, USD will remain the reserve.
Because, imagine the scenario where the US simply counterfeits the renminbi. What is China's recourse? Spicy statements by Wang Yi in toothless international forums?
Folks can keep their heads in the sand for pretty long, as long as they look just at progressively smaller circle around them and ignore rest of reality.
The momentum China already gained, and gaining more every day is well beyond anything in the west. Plus if you consider the position they are rising from, its properly meteoric. Nobody knows future, but its rather easy to continue projection with current, or even a bit slower pace and within 1 or 2 decades, situation will be pretty clear from any objective perspective.
Above is purely technological/process progress. Add US making enemy of whole world in one brilliant move, something that is practically irreversible in upcoming decades, and situation is clear. Military (without ammo) alone won't give you much negotiating power. LLMs can be replicated elsewhere with rather little cost, and soon some small bleeding edge advantage will be largely meaningless for most practical tasks.
It doesn't even matter what near future brings, this is settled and no amount of denial from US or self-patting is changing that.
I’m not sure I agree with “already won”, that’s an extreme position, but there are consequences to all the things s/he says. It may be a death of 1000 cuts, or it may hit a tipping point, but the us is certainly walking blindly down the “let China win” road.
As a joint us/uk citizen, even I would prefer to deal with China than the USA these days. Predictability is really useful in business, and narcissistic man child presidents aren’t predictable.
Many people avoid Chinese stocks like the plague because the system is still half communist and as a foreign investor you get some paper in a company on Cayman Island instead of real direct ownership. That keeps me from buying their stocks and I'm not the only one.
China has the largest combined collective penis size. Around 500 million men (I'm discounting young kids and the elderly) times 4.5 inches (according to statistics).
No other power on earth has that penis size.
Look around and visit any country, you'll see chinese made and sold goods inundating everymarket, build infrastructures.
It used to be chinese made goods sold by local or western companies. Nowadays bar a few exceptions these are chinese goods sold directly by chinese brands/companies.
Go do some research on China - it's economy is in the toilet and its leadership has destroyed much of it's success, foreign capital and companies have fled to India, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia.
Your lament of "Oh no China is the best in the world and only getting better!!!" is long long out of date.
With 2 billion people you’re absolute power. Internal market with middle class size of whole United States. No need for wallstreet and American style financial engineering. Producer of 80% goods for Europe. I mean buying something mainstream not made in China is barely possible. Technically there are some challenges like plane engines or lithography. But they’ll nail it. Trust me.
One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly.
If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
> 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 whatever that means and the US is just that politics aren't corrupted enough yet that they can buy whatever they want.
I did some admin work for the startup around 5 years ago and I have to say EU countries specially mine Sweden is far more clear. In USA you are basically hopeless without a lawyer. but I did a search and for clarity of rule I searched and this came up using AI:
World Bank’s broad “Regulatory Quality” measure supports that direction: Sweden scored 95.28/100 and the US 90.57/100 in its latest comparable 2023 data. I couldn't find EU wide score.
I wanted to help someone to get work visa and I thought it is like Sweden and you just fill a small form, oh boy! We hired a lawyer for just filling the US side application.
Heavily country-dependent, in practice. The UK lets you set up a company online cheaply, quickly, and filing is easy. Insurance is plentiful and sensible, as are business bank accounts. The law is mostly straight-forward. Setting up a German limited-liability company OTOH involves putting down some ghastly large sum as a guarantee.
But yes, Americans are told they have the freest speech and the freest markets, and don't seem to question either.
It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
That's unfettered capitalism at work—"free" implies no bounds. Multinational corporations have never been more powerful now than at anytime in history.
And that hurts the free market. A free market should be transparent, have low barriers to entry, and not be dominated by monopolies or cartels. There's nothing free about American capitalism.
> The president of the European Commission has backed proposals for Canada to become the EU's first "associate member".
Article 238 of the original Treaty of Rome, which is now article 217 TFEU, provides for the EU (or its precursors) to enter into "association agreements" with third-states, e.g. Turkey has one of them. A lot of current EU members (e.g. Greece) had them before becoming members.
A lot of 1970s/1980s sources referred to these states as "associate members of the EEC" – but it seems like everyone has forgotten that.
The EU feels like an incomplete experiment. Not strong enough to actually be a single market. But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones.
The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
Consider: the US is a (somewhat) greenfield project, while the EU is a brownfield refactoring.
These sorts of refactorings take time, even more so if done by "committee". The good thing is that explicit interfaces have to be created thereby (hopefully) increasing adaptability and resilience over time.
> The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
I agree, but there are huge barriers to taking this step. You need a common identity to create a nation. Americans have one, so do other large nations. The EU does not.
Europe’s biggest problem, I think, is its lost mojo. There’s plenty of good ingredients, plenty of challenges too. It can still go either way. Hell, at this rate it might outperform simply because US and China blow up due to domestic problems.
The thing about mojo is that it’s super hard to predict. It might stay where it is and Europe’s share of global GDP might decline to nothing. Or it might rekindle out of nowhere due to some impulse.
Either way, middle democracies are a somewhat threatened species now, and from their individual PoV an imperfect union might be much better than efficiently staying on their own.
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-productivity culture)
Regulation is possible without paralyzing industry. Laws about the internet are possible without stifling freedom. Central planning is possible without crashing the economy so bad you end up with a regime change. It all comes down to execution and for the most part, it's been a series of failed experiments.
As much as I want a happy future for Canadians and Europeans, I just don't see the odds being super favourable.
"But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones."
It seems to me the EU is overburdened with trivial regulations (like regulating the maximum power consumption of domestic vacuum cleaners) rather than prioritizing core issues of its single market, manufacturing, trade, etc.
Trouble is small vested interests hold overly powerful sway over EU-wide policy. The example above is a case in point, individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted.
You're correct, annoying regulations are bloating the EU bureaucracy making it lethargic and uncompetitive.
> individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted.
People proclaim this with such confidence, especially in the UK before the Brexit years I must say, and yet there are so many arguments against it.
First, accepting this goes against a core tenet of the single market, since the single market for vacuum cleaners is now split into 27 little markets. We thus need 27 regulatory bodies to each investigate, and then make a political decision, on the maximum power setting of domestic vacuum cleaners. Then, producers in China will have to make (up to) 27 different models of vacuum cleaners. This is certainly not going to be cheaper, completely destroys the famous Brussels effect [0], all for some token amount of "sovereignty".
Nations states can sovereignly decide to delegate this process of rule making to Brussels, and domestic vacuum cleaners are a perfectly mundane "case in point" to showcase the benefits of this process. The EU is far from a perfect union, but throwing these frankly naive arguments around will not help it much.
> The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
EU already has uniform regulations, what are you talking about? It's also the third largest economy in the world, as uncompetitive as it is.
No it does not. There's a lot of gold plating happening at the national level that goes beyond EU regulations. It's EU regulations + 27 national regulations in reality. The EU economies are still too different and the population too unwilling to have a truly US-style single market.
It's an improvement for the economy and that mainly benefits the shareholders. How you redistribute those gains more broadly is an open question. But keeping inefficiencies in place to protect workers at all costs is a losing strategy in the long term - see: Soviet Union.
Unsurprisingly, people in different parts of the world hold different values. Europe is generally more focused on actual people and how their lives live, than simply accumulation of wealth among the few. It is unsurprising that they focus on different things.
I am not sure, if I see the example of US as federation, it might work well for corporations only, but people have nothing, uniformity doesn't work because not all populations have the same needs/expectations
Its hard because its 27 different countries, but they are working on making it less hard. Many startups are made in Europe, but then bought up (often by Americans) or moves to USA when its time to expand outside the single countries boarders. Canada has the same problem.
Canada has made it pretty clear that they do not want to be part of the big country south of it, so they will have to find a way to create large companies that stays. Doing this together with a market of 450 million people seems like a good idea.
Eh, on a long enough timeline we have seen this and been there before. US is the beacon of democracy and the free world until it is not, and then until it again is. Depending on who is speaking and about whom and when.
Most of these attention grabbing statements by politicians are usually about scoring political points at home. The only thing worthy of judgement are hard facts, and excruciating details, which are yet to materialize on this topic.
This was a kind of example, and not really the point of my comment.
Though to illustrate further, there are many examples one might find of US acting undemocratically even 40 years ago.
So, politicians will talk, governments will be in power, and the observers will discuss. My invitation was simply to discuss known facts not political rhetoric. And main facts are largely absent and unknown.
This would be Canada getting down leveled to the minor leagues. Yes there are a few issues with the US, but Canada is vastly better off playing on the world stage under the wings of the US than it would be as the EU’s “associate member.” The next phase of history is going the be China and the US and then everyone else scrambling for scraps.
US governance has become so unreliable, destructive and inane, with little prospect of reverting back to what is once was, given the US’ internal political and societal landscape, that being under its “wings” now constitutes a major risk for any of its allies. Canada is correct to diversify.
I hear you, but the US is hardly the only country on the planet that’s had a few disruptive elections, including the EU BTW. Making generational decisions over one presidential cycle is rather short sighted.
> I hear you, but the US is hardly the only country on the planet that’s had a few disruptive elections
When it's Hungary it's funny, because it doesn't matter, when it's the US it's not, because it fucks up the entire world's order. It really is not that hard to understand the problem
It’s been going on since 2016, which at the end of the current term will already be roughly half a generation. And what has been destroyed in the first half of this term alone will take longer than that to rebuild.
While there are troubling developments in EU countries as well, there is also the converse (e.g. Hungary), and the EU parliamentary systems are significantly more resilient than the US two-party presidential system.
And if Trump had just faded into obscurity after 2021 we probably wouldn't see this kind of realignment, but the fact he got reelected makes it look much less like a fluke and more like an USA that's increasingly unreliable on the international stage
Imposing tariffs one day and TACOing out a few days later and infinitum is not reliable. There is no 4D chess going on, only incompetency and self-enrichment.
The US is on the path of Russia since the end of the iron curtain, moving to a kleptocracy ruled by (tech br)olichargs.
The electoral + two-party system makes it nearly impossible to break out of this.
What in the world is this train of thought? Do you not understand that the American President has directly threatened Canadian sovereignty multiple times over the last 2 years, even if under the auspices of “trolling” or “jokes”? In addition to that, the President is seeking direct control over Canadian trade relationships, control over its natural resources and all while attempting to destroy its industrial output.
This ignorance makes it very clear that the American voting populace does not take positive relations with erstwhile allies seriously. Increased trade integration may not be the ideal situation for Canada, but nothing about the situation is ideal. At least we won’t be subjugating ourselves to hostile hegemons like China and the USA.
I'm sorry, but this comment feels insufferable. I feel so much eye roll from reading it. USA is not "major leagues" by the measures that the rest of the world cares to size itself up by.
If there's an apt non-baseball metaphor, it's perhaps that USA is a circus we are compelled to pay attention to for now. We'd rather just not
And won't the dems just undo all this tariff nonsense anyway? Or is Canada acting like a bitter ex after a breakup who vows to take their seething to the grave no matter what
The US is a completely broken country, and simply switching governments will not change that. Without a complete and utter change in how that entire country operates -- including dissolution -- no country should ever normalize relations with it again.
The US is by far the world's most dangerous rogue nation. It is a terroristic nation. It is a bully. It not only elected a rapist imbecile to president, it elected him again, seeking a round two after the utter debacle the first term was, and the disastrous results are exactly what everyone could predict, but you know...this is who America is now.
And a big reason Canada is moving on is that it's pretty clear that the US is a country in spectacular decline, and it is China's century now. Which is maybe why the US is electing disgusting garbage like Trump -- and he's certainly not alone, and there are various garbage "football coach" type creeps filling the entire US political class -- lamenting the position they once held, now going down the Russian/Putin path where they'll accelerate the crash just to reminisce about a past that mostly never existed.
I don't know. How did writing the farcical nonsense about Canada being "down-levelled" make you feel? Must have felt like you're clutching onto a delusion?
Don't worry, America still has the cartoonishly pathetic "Board of Peace" (though the Arab despots might not be as eager now that the US got completely humiliated by some isolated rogue theocracy), and your close allies Argentina and El Salvador.
American exceptionalism is astonishing to see in the wild.
The next phase of history is China's, and broadly Asia's. Everyone on the planet, but Americans, can see this. It is indisputable.
Everyone else is finding a place within that new reality, and no one else wants to play along with American delusions that they're going to hold onto their place and everyone else are their supplicants.
At this stage, the US should be begging every like-minded nation to be friends. Instead you elected a grotesque embarrassment farce that coddles up to two-bit clowns like Milei, while endlessly attacking allies. ROFL.
Enjoy the coming crash.
Yeah, we don't want to be under the "umbrella" of a terroristic idiocracy menace. You can become the worldwide pariah on your own, without our offering of legitimacy for your terrible behaviour.
If I’m Canada I look for a trade agreement rather than associate membership - no reason to put your eggs in one basket.
As an American, I continue to be sad and tired that our current president is somehow allowed to unilaterally destroy a very successful and thriving trade partner via arbitrary tariffs that have already been ruled illegal and while it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference I’m sorry about it.
Don't be. Trump is a necessary and welcome wake up call. We Canadians needed Trump's shock of reality.
The truth is that, for more than a century, the main trait of being Canadian was simply not being American and not trusting Americans.
In 1775 George Washington ordered the invasion of southern Quebec and we resisted. After the American revolution we received an huge influx of Loyalists, the Americans that didn't want to be part of the U.S.; we say the American Revolution created 2 countries: yours and ours. In 1812 Americans raised war against us, as a continuation of the Napoleonic wars. Although we were still a British colony, we fought back, invaded Washington DC and set the White House on fire. In 1890, the McKinley Tariffs were meant to subjugate us, the same way Trump wants to do now [1]. They backfired, made us stronger.
But in the 80's the Reagan-Mulroney trade agreement fooled us. We became too reliant, friendly and confident to the Americans. It was a dangerous illusion. The Comanche, Apache and Navajo have learned too late that you can't trust Americans. Luckily for us, Trump reminded us that lesson on time, before it would be too late.
From Blackberry to a budding VFX industry and many other sustainable businesses to come out of Canada has always made it seem like a very EU-like philosophy. This will be great for fair trade.
I have no idea how we do it, but I think we should somehow ban the expansion of all the existing unions (EU, CIS, NATO, whatever else we got). The overall worldwide tension is pretty high, but now
- US goes after South America and Greenland
- EU goes after Canada and Georgia (country), which is just ridiculous in terms of geography
- Russia invades Ukraine and goes after Eastern Europe and Middle-East to some extent
- China does its expansion too
Even though some of these actions are just political nonsense, it still increases the overall level of escalation. This is not what the world needs right now
Trade agreements and unions — yes, please; yet another political or military union expansion — please, God, no. I understand that EU is a mix of both, but also do think that this is a purely political game against Trump
Europe definitely needs to find replacements for the USA as a trusted partner. The US now supports Russia in its war against Ukraine, imposes random tariffs, pressures European companies over DEI (I'm not particularly woke myself, but I think equal opportunities regardless of race, for example, is a good idea), and makes threats against Greenland, Canada and Iceland. It also puts pressure on free speech and EU digital rules: the US imposed visa bans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, an architect of the Digital Services Act, and four anti-disinformation activists, and I believe it also had his Microsoft email disabled. Add to that climate denial, the war on science, threats to leave NATO, antivax etc. I believe many countries will unfortunately turn to China, since even China is more predictable than the US.
They would probably argue “European nation” is cultural and not geographic. Morocco is officially Muslim and not a full democracy, the EU isn’t ready for that I don’t think.
I’m hopeful that closer ties with Europe could give Canadians a chance to learn from European agriculture and food culture.
Canada needs a new perspective in how we produce and sell food here. I’d love to see us move away from a food system dominated by crappy US-style highly engineered, ultra-processed products and toward a much greater variety of fresh and minimally processed foods, stronger regional production, and a richer everyday food culture.
I would welcome EU grocery chains and food producers to shake things up here and bring some sanity back to Canadian food culture.
I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave.
In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength in autocracy and force and it's often why I think the EU receives so much disproportionate hate.
"Annexing neighbour" is clearly a non-goal of the EU. One of the reason of its existence is to put an end to european countries invading each others all the time.
> Yes, you can read all about how that came about, and how it's going.
Yes, it seems to have made no difference. economically - economy performing much the same as France and Germany. Lots of lives saved by the faster covid vaccine rollout which is a plus IMO.
> You're projecting an American ideal. Not all nations are--nor want to be--America, and we're thankful for that.
You are missing my point. Not annexing anyone when its not an option because you cannot does not prove anything.
I have never even been to America - why would I project an American ideal?
The world was already moving on from US hegemony. China is already a super power, other economies are growing, and the west in general (i.e. all the countries mentioned here) are a shrinking proportion of the world economy (and population, or military strength).
You jest, but if you've ever seen a wounded animal fighting like mad for survival, I wouldn't be so confident that won't be the exact same things that's going to happen.
You don't have to look into the animal kingdom, history works too. No ruling empire has fallen silently and without conflict. Changing the world order always included an aggressive transfer of power
It was mostly peaceful in itself. There was a lot of conflict that followed in the wake of it as borders and power structures were settled. Just in South Asia we had the partition of India, the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the Sri Lankan civil war, and various smaller separatist conflicts.
I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland eventually leaves UK and joins the EU. Part of the reason they voted to stay in the UK was so that they could remain in the EU, and then brexit happened
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.
They would then have a hard border with England, and would have to untangle their economy from the UK to some extent, which would be extremely disruptive. There will also be complex issues around who gets which citizenship, who would need work visas, a change of currency, etc.
It was known that there was likely to be a Brexit referendum at the time of the Scottish referendum: Cameron had promised one if the Conservatives won the 2015 election.
Leyen babbles a lot. I have absolutely nothing at all against Canada and EU getting closer, but please don't dance when Leyen whistles - that leads to nothing but uselessness. She should have never been in politics to begin with - the absolutely worst person for the job.
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.
> I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.
That won't be a problem for long. The native Europeans are swinging to the authoritarian right, the newly naturalized are very selectively for liberal democracy - aka the parts that directly benefit them, not the parts that make it liberal, and the liberal democrats are straight out refusing to have kids.
So in 50 years Tukey will border authoritarian regime either way.
Almost a decade on and most Canadians don't seem to realize we already have CETA (free trade) with the EU. It's not fully fully ratified but it's there. It's why our grocery stores have been slowly filling with European products we never had before (Yay!)
For example: It's already cheaper for me -- as a consumer -- to import sporting goods (skis, etc) from the EU than it is from the US. (And often less shipping hassle too, oddly).
And yet distributor arrangements often still funnel everything through the US, first as "North American distributor" models. Incurring shipping and sometimes even tariff overhead. (Looking at you Scarpa, North America. You suck.)
Even if all of this is symbolic, it may at least shift perceptions on our side of the Atlantic so Canadian businesses at least start looking to Europe more seriously as both importers and exporters.
People often forget our country was built on an east west shipping and transport axis with the St Lawrence (and later the Pacific) as outflow, to supply Europe (mainly Britain). It was only later that north-south trade became more important economically.
Shipping manufactured goods across the Atlantic to European customers may end up cheaper for them than shipping from China in some circumstances.
I'm maybe also a bit biased, I currently work for a European employer.
id love to just move to somewhere in the eu and be able to freely work there. thats how it should be in every country btw. until then, it seems like more performance, which carney has seemingly mastered.
Dairy is highly protected in Canada. For better or for worse.
Exceptions were made for cheeses though. They've dropped significantly in (relative) price and varieties of imports have improved significantly in the last 10 years. Even the most white-bread grocery stores tend to stock a selection of decent European cheeses now.
It's a bit wishy-washy; they're just saying "we're better off working together" not actually doing something.
I can't imaging Canada would be looking to align its standards and laws with the EU. Don't get me wrong, the EU does a lot of things that make it both safer and better, but it makes things more expensive to make, and that only works when there isn't a wild-west next-door-neighbour. It's hard to compete when your biggest and nearest export market has looser labour and product regulations than you.
Of course Canada can do more trade with the EU without broad regulatory alignment, it just seems weird you'd need to announce it.
The LNG won't come from Canada either. Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it, but the truth is they can't agree with how to actually get enough of it to the east coast to make a difference, and that's what blocks it. (In fairness the route does go through some very unique environments).
Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU, and people remotely familiar with the EU will understand what a strong statement that is.
The only "way" involves greasing the palms of every special interest group in the way until they have successfully accounted for the whole potential revenue of the intended enterprise, and that's what blocked everything repeatedly.
I'm in Quebec and very familiar with the exact territory this has applied to wrt getting resources out on the east coast, and unless someone was willing to rule by decree to bypass all those entrenched groups it's not happening, and we all know why such decrees would not happen as well.
Solar panels are even worse. Here in Poland they're covering entire fields in the countryside, I have no idea why they don't build them on parking lots or on factory roofs.
Yes I have no problems with them looks-wise. They don't build them on parking lots/factory roofs because of efficiency. Good solar panels follow the sun, which isnt really a mechanism practical to setup in a parking lot. maintenance is also a lot easier if you have one field generating a gigawatt of power vs having to service 20 parking lots that generate a gigawatt of power. Also obviously the land itself is cheaper in the countryside. Renewables are operating on relatively thing margins profitability wise, so you really want to make the juice worth the squeeze (the main value being sovereignty from other countries as discussed in the thread)
of course. Ive not met a person that doesn't like them, either. I love hiking and have travelled pretty wide across europe.
Solar panels are similarly lovely to see. I'd just as rather see them than a uniform field of corn or maize or somesuch thing. I can't understand the mindset that objects to such things? is it just a straight up childish nimby "I don't want ANYTHING to be built" or would you prefer natural gas+coal power plants ? or any other built structures for that matter (I think they are better than concrete buildings etc - they are white tree-like things, thin with smooth curved surfaces, or rows of curious purple and black panels swiveling to face the sun)
I've never seen a pumpjack nor any hydrofracking equipment. I have seen a few capitalists but I can't be positive they were red-blooded ones (whatever that means).
Petro-states are destroying their trust as they try desperately to cling on to the power fossil fuels have given them. Thankfully this makes renewables even more attractive than just their lower cost.
Maybe this is a naive statement, but it seems like full membership including open borders between Canada and other EU states and adoption of the Euro would also be beneficial to everyone involved.
The UK should continue to be embarrassed and ashamed to leave such an incredible institution, although at this point we can say that they clearly don’t deserve the EU anyway.
Yes but someone will need to step in and adjudicate once everyone in Europe has enough of living in the United States of Germany and there’s another war over it.
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 tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. 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."
> 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 it without budgetary contributions.
A lot of this is about resource access, and that can't be magically conjured. You can have all the industry and business you want to put on paper, but this is a tangible concern for Europe where they require these things from a stable and trusted nation with a similar regulatory and political environment.
This trade matter is likely going to require a new type of agreement that has some special privileges not extended in any other case for both parties.
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 UK already enjoyed a large amount of 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 members at first…)
This is the other part: if associate membership is a thing then won't half of the EU start thinking that's their future?
> Also, game theoretically it's of course more important to not make leaving (or threatening to leave) the union seem too lucrative.
Because you simply wouldn't be offered the option of just deescalating your full membership to an associate membership. If you want to leave, you leave fully, and then in time we can discuss what happens next.
This makes being involved as little as possible but no more far more attractive than being bound too tightly together though.
Almost like many of the EU states were misled into their current situations.
The UK wanted to maintain its veto over all EU matters (cake and eat it too).
>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 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.
> 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 is not free movement of goods and services.
A) Would never happen.
B) If it did happen, the US would just say “give us the same deal or you get cut off” and Europe would capitulate immediately.
Cut the EU off from ... what?
Technlogy? That would likely result in a US market crash the likes of which has never been seen before. Look at what percentage of the stock market is the magnificent 7. Now imagine what would happen to that if US tech giants were no longer allowed to sell their products/services in the EU. The market is fragile as it is with the AI bubble going on.
Trade? That cuts both ways, and the US economy and cost-of-living crisis doesn't give them lots of wriggle room.
Products? China will be all to happy to step into whatever market is thus competition-free, not to mention the impact this would have on US businesses.
Canada will be competing in Eurovision 2027 in May. :)
Also, being a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) "Associate Member" is the name for the mechanism that allowed Australia, Canada and other countries to be admitted into Eurovision.
If you've been around the ESC scene, you know there's a lot of embassy involvement (parties in embassies are a thing), the scene is catnip for those interested in politics, the politically active, and to some extent politicians. Eurovision is also one mechanism for discussions of economic development. Hosting the contest is usually an excuse for upgrades to public infrastructure.
And there's Eurovision Asia starting in November. South Korea is an Associate Member of the EBU, for example.
https://www.ebu.ch/news/2026/03/bangkok-to-host-first-ever-e...
> If you've been around the ESC scene
This is a euphemism on par with attending parties in parts of the SFO AI community.
Having been around both, the ESC isn't nearly as drug-fueled as the other, for better or worse.
Doubtful, Eurovision only accepts countries actively participating in extermination/genocide campaigns.
Unless genocidal regimes are excluded, I wouldn't bother.
So no France, Germany, Australia, or UK
more than a half dozen Canadians have already competed in Eurovision, including one winner (Céline Dion). has Australia ever won?
Australia has managed a 2nd and a 4th from 11 entrants. Our voting participation is quite low though, as the voting windows are usually at awkward AEST times and the main Australian broadcast of the contest is delayed until our primetime.
AFAIK Charles III is the monarch both for UK and Canada.
Doesn't this mean that Canada is, in a certain degree, dependent of UK?
No - it means that Charles III is an independent monarch for two separate nations.
The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada
>the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sovereign's role as monarch of Canada has been distinct from their position as monarch of any other realm,[n 4][16][65][66][67] including the United Kingdom.[n 6][69][70][71][72] Only Canadian federal ministers of the Crown may advise the sovereign on any and all matters of the Canadian state,[n 7][70][73][74][75][76][77] of which the sovereign, when not in Canada, is kept abreast by weekly communications with the federal viceroy.[78] The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution and, in Canada, became a Canadian,[40][79][80][81] or "domesticated",[82] establishment, though it is still often denoted as "British" in both legal and common language,[40] for reasons historical, political, and of convenience.
No, it’s like Elon. He happens to be CEO of multiple companies but they are separate and independent companies (for now).
Let me introduce you to the Commonwealth of Nations
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations
These countries choose voluntarily to hold ties with the UK, and each other, and some accept the UK's monarch as nominal head of state, but don't be mistaken; they are all fully independent countries. Some are republics, some are kingdoms with their own monarch. They value each other's friendship, shared values and heritage, but they're not beholden to the UK or each other.
No. We have our own monarch who happens to be the same human is all
So it's like two kubernetes pods happen to run on the same node.
No. He is separately the monarch of the UK and Canada. You could just as well argue that the UK is dependent on Canada for that reason.
No, he’s just the monarch of two different countries simultaneously.
Eurovision being the primary point of contention between the US and the EU.
Being an Associate Country (or Associate State) doesn't guarantee visa-free travel (ask how we know), yet I'm sure that Canadians will get it served on a silver platter.
Freedom of movement with the EU and no border with the USA hm....
How is this different from the EEA (Norway/Switzerland/Iceland)?
EEA you have to follow rules but get no say in said rules.
To "join" the EEA both sides/parties of it has to agree, so yes, members do have a say, it's beneficial (and should be) to both parties of the agreements.
Reductive to the point of untruth
Like me when I sign up for Hacker News or Twitter.
Will Canada have to follow the rules? Will Canada have a say in the rules?
For one this seems related to EU the umbrella organization, not Europe the continent, while I suppose the European Economic Area might be geographically limited to Europe the continent. Maybe something like the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) might be more applicative here.
I'm curious how an integration into Schengen Area could actually work... Or does it just mean no passport controls?
Also, to be able to sell stuff, you gotta comply with the CE rules one way or another, there is no free card here.
About competition in Eurovision: absolutely, would love for them to participate, even if just as guest state :D
LMAO just googled it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Canada_in_the_Eurovision_Song_...
I think free movement of people doesn’t imply Schengen Zone style borders - I thought this was mostly an economic lever that people can move and work in another country by default, not a human right where a country cannot exclude chosen people (known criminals, etc) and track all crossings. I think of it as another country giving me a visa is opt-out for that country, not opt-in.
The CE rules are relatively sane and followed commonly right? At least I see a lot of CE-stamped goods in Australia… so I always assumed that was the case.
Not all of the EU is in schengen, but we do have freedom of movement. Ireland for example is not in Schengen and never will be because of our travel arrangements with the UK.
It has to be like Norway/Switzerland/Iceland or more to get any free movements of goods and services. Level of access goes hand in hand with integration in term of regulation, etc.
"Associate member" actually sounds like TIGHTER integration than Norway/Switzerland/Iceland, which are not members at all. Switzerland is not even in the EEA. It is a very bad term, actually as Canada cannot be an EU member (it isn't in Europe) and if they don't want or can't join the EEA then that leaves a Switzerland-like deal, which is purely bilateral.
He asked for phase 1. It would be foolish not to expect phase 2
> and legislative integration
Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms? Not sure if this falls under "legislative integration" but I'd say that it would be quite important to have settled. The same goes when it comes to Canada's work-related laws.
It's not an insurmountable problem if they don't have compatibility on standards
It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating.
It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).
EU signed a free trade agreement with Canada but its never been ratified
> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?
It might not be as strict anymore, as the EU-Mercosur Agreement seemingly ended up relaxing a bit on the strict norms and regulations. Many farmers were/are protesting this agreement exactly because the farmers in South America would compete against local farmers who are more strictly regulated.
So, seems we're a bit flexible on that front, when push comes to shove :)
In the past years it has become pretty clear that even the mainstream right wingers/neoliberals of the EU (ie. the EPP) appear to be ready and willing to drop or loosen all kinds of annoying ethical, environmental, and consumer protection regulations at a moment's notice if it helps large corporations make more money.
> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?
Which output specifically? To take one example, the Dijon mustard coming out of France is mostly from Canadian mustard seeds:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijon_mustard#2022_shortage_in...
>>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.
This version of EU integration is more popular than EU itself in significant part of EU right now.
This was one of the stupid things that was touted as a benefit of not being in the EU during brexit.
That we'd still have to comply with EU rules if we wanted to trade with them, but we wouldn't have any vote in those rules
[delayed]
> no payments into each others budget.
> Tighter integration than UK, not as tight as Norway/Switzerland/Iceland.
This will not work as Norway and Switzerland pay. I am unsure about the UK whether they pay or not, but anything else would be unfair to Norway and Switzerland.
> Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
Where and how? Surely not via the EU because the EU has no power over that. See how Austria is part of the EU but militarily neutral.
> I can tell you this enjoys broad support in the EU public. 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."
Canada is much more appreciated than the USA here, but you need to look at all fine details. Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour. Nothing against Canada moving closer to the EU, mind you, but this here seems a lot more show-value centered than "show us the details". Because what are the exact details here? I am all in favour of countries cooperating more now that the USA has gone fully rogue, but politicians love show and entertainment.
Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.
>Why is Israel part of it?
To see people like you seeth.
> > Common defense was already agreed anyhow.
> Where and how?
NATO presumably
> Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.
Eligibility to compete is not based on country, but my membership to the European Braodcasting Union of which Israel is a member, and Australian SBS is an associate member and was allowed to compete as a special case.
Don't bring Eurovision into it. Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.
> Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.
Easy to say if you haven't experienced the killings
Agree, any country in the world should be able to participate in ESC, as long as the country agrees with peace, love and understanding. So yes, please ban Israel as soon as possible, together with any other countries that don't share these three very basic principles, that seemingly is easy for all the other participants to follow.
> Don't bring Eurovision into it. Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.
So then why was Russia kicked out?
Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them.
But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaster got kicked out for Russia doing bad things (fair enough) but Israel's was kept in despite their government doing even worse things.
Yeah, the scandal is about different members being held to different standards. Why are Azerbaijan and Israel allowed to stay while Russia got kicked out? Especially since Azerbaijan and Israel both have manipulated the voting in addition to waging wars.
> ...while Russia got kicked out?
For starters, neither Israel nor Azerbaijan threaten Europe with nuklear annihation on a nearly weekly basis.
Because Russia is an enemy of Europe while Israel is an ally.
Yeah, Azerbaijan is another which is often forgotten. Honestly, it seems Eurovision is mostly interesting for countries that need PR help. I'd be happy to see the whole thing go, it's outlived what little purpose it had.
UK does not pay.
The EU is likely to develop a military at some point and has some defence cooperation. if you do not trust the US, that means you cannot rely on NATO, which means you need some alternative.
> Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour.
I agree. It might be meant as a threat to influence US policy.
That could be a european Nato though, doesn't mean you need literally one EU army
Yes, and it might be a good idea. It should probably not be part of the EU though - there are a number of non-EU countries you would want in a European NATO such as the UK, Norway and Iceland.
> 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.
Yup. Oh no, my meat isn't pumped full of hormones and vacuums aren't allowed to be hearing-damagingly loud. The horror..
Also re: OP, yes if you want to sell stuff in the EU, you will need to adhere to the same rules as EU companies.
I have such fatigue from listening to the rhetoric and whining from US farmers when enough of their goods are dangerous for consumers and illegal in Canada and the EU.
It's all bad faith from the US trying to run over any market they don't control so they can weaponize control over food supply of another nation later.
I don't mind countries setting their own rules for the food they want to consume, and for sure the EU can be overly bureaucratic.
On the other hand, the US is the only country I've been to where I have purchased milk in a completely sealed plastic container, and it was rancid when I opened it. Upstate New York is proud of their local and organic produce, but they are selling rancid milk in stores like that's a normal thing. That was a shock as a visiting Australian.
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.
PPWR is an obvious one. Its such a dysfunctional law that they actually told people to ignore it.
Programmers keep thinking law is if/then, it's not, it's a set of instructions to judges, which may contain obvious errors or conflict with other instructions, which is why we allow humans to interpret them instead of computers.
One I have actually dealt with was VATMOSS. Especially when first introduced it had very low ceilings for registration and actually deterred small businesses from trading across borders.
I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.
> too strict for small businesses and non-profits
Maybe just calibrated poorly. Small enough and IMO the only important rule is no sharing with others. That should always be strictly enforced. But why worry about how some small timer handles my personal data or if I can make various requests of him? The stakes are too small to matter.
Having health with VATMOSS too my experience is that it was trivial to implement. Maybe your country fucked up the rollout? Here in Sweden I had zero issues.
Its not the country, its the implementation cost for small businesses. In particular the ceiling for registration was so low that even micro-businesses with minimal cross border sales had to comply.
Its would have been trivial for a big business, but it was not for small businesses.
Welcome to Canada where the regulations are in fact provincial.
Canadian provinces have a harder time trading with each other than countries in the EU, although thanks to the sales tax and package transit changes the EU is becoming competitive in this area.
...Those cookie banner things for a start!! heh. ;)
Mostly just wouldn't really work because Ottawa would have to somehow represent the provinces to the EU and the provinces and Ottawa don't work together in a way that would be compatible, I don't think anyone in Canada would want to change how Ottawa works with them. We may also end up in the same position again as we have with the Americans, nobody but us likes our supply management system[1]. GDPR is also something I think Canadians would struggle to get behind, our PIPEDA framework is quite good and I think most folks approve of it (except Quebec, who have their own framework). Taking the Euro would be a problem, etc etc, I think I could probably build quite a big list. btw, I respect the EU regulation, and that Europeans quite like it, I was just saying I don't think it would be practical for us to re-work the whole country to accommodate them, that's all.
[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...
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.
Exactly. The EU has plenty of faults, but I don't see anything better. Improving on the EU is better than abandoning it.
I am British, pro-Brexit, and still prefer France to the US as a neighbour. I would have always said that - its not just Trump.
How dare the EU try to preserve competitive open markets. We can’t have capitalism in the leveragist serfdom economy!
A lot of replies confidently explaining ‘what this actually means’ in some detail despite the article saying things like:
> [Canada would be] EU's first "associate member"
> …
> [Von der Leyen] did not give specific details on how any Canadian membership would work, but listed manufacturing, technology, AI, defence, energy, critical minerals and economic security as key areas for cooperation.
> …
> But "associate membership" of the EU does not currently exist and the process, if agreed, could take years.
>
This is a sinking ship trying to lash unwitting tenders to it to try to keep it afloat while it rams an iceberg. Canada does not need that kind of trouble.
Kinda like what Norway has, I'd imagine.
Eased travel and trade, but not full membership voting rights, etc. So basically, an extensive trade and economics agreement, with options to intensify relationships later on.
Good thing for both sides!
I am just hoping that I can finally get an EU-spec station wagon
If a company wants to sell in the EU, they should comply with EU rules. The market and the regulations are closely linked, you won't get one without the other.
I'm afraid you're mistaking our lunatic leader with "us". Understandable, but this step will be wholly unnecessary as soon as December when his power will be checked (largely). I lean right, more libertarian small government type, so you're not hearing this from a blowhard on the American left. His foreign policy, the way he's treated friends has been wanton and immensely damaging, and a whole lot of us want this corrected.
The majority of US voters like the guy. He represents the country, like it or not. Most of his voters still agree with all the stuff he's doing, and the opposition seems intent on sabotaging themselves as much as possible so he will likely win again this year.
Hopefully Canada can just get the economic benefits and not end up having to be subject to the insane stuff like Chat Control
> Canada's Bill C-22 Would Force Encryption Backdoors
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/canada-bill-c22-lawful-...
And yet NordVPN and Signal both continue to work in Australia (I don't know who/what Windscribe are), so all other things aside, I suspect this is a hollow threat.
They have not asked yet or companies (Fastmail for example) just provide access and keep quiet.
> Australia passes world’s first law authorizing encryption backdoors
> The law authorizes police to compel companies to create a security vulnerability, often called a backdoor, that would give investigators access to an individual’s communication without that person’s knowledge. It marks a major milestone in the so-called “crypto wars” over the public’s ability to “go dark” via the powerful encryption available on commercial devices.
https://cyberscoop.com/australia-encryption-backdoors-law-pa...
There are way more benefits to being in EU than disadvantages.
This is only part of the question though, the other question is is it actually good for the EU to continue growing and becoming more heterogenous indefinitely, which to me isn't at all clear.
You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free
Just a few days ago, Iceland disagreed.
And that is the beauty of it, no one is forced.
Benefits are more visible from the inside, and if you don't like it you can brexit.
Unfortunately no one can be forced out also.
It would be nice to have roam-like-at-home also.
CETA (free trade) already exists with the EU. What is happening here is mostly symbolism and diplomacy. And maybe it will lead to the last hold out EU member states fully ratifying CETA (French farmers famously difficult).
Many people (including Carney himself) are presenting this as a fundamental and recent pivot.
But the opening moves of this happened a long time ago. CETA was negotiated by Chrystia Freeland and the now-often-maligned Trudeau gov't.
(also Trudeau also had a honeymoon phase for the first two to three years of his term...)
I hope it means we'll allow EU cars on our roads.
I think Canada might have an opportunity to help Europe at least reason a bit about regulations.
For the most part I am thankful that the EU regulates things strictly. As long as I am the consumer of what is regulated and not the maker. Because while the regulation is well meaning, it is not always effective or efficient. And sometimes it achieves absolutely no positive results.
And yet, I am generally for regulating a lot of things.
For instance the cookie-popup-horseshit is failed regulation that came about mainly because regulators were squeamish about real solutions that would have required constant judgement calls. Instead of posing an existential risk to companies that run roughshod over our privacy, they created impotent regulation that is a dual failure: it protects exactly nobody and it wastes everyone's time multiple times over.
Companies that do bad things should face existential risks. It is the only mechanism that works. Fines only work for small players. For large players it is surprisingly often a calculation where the numbers dictate you DO bad things because the downside risk is mostly quantifiable and financially acceptable.
Yes, sanctioning companies guilty of egregious violations of privacy would have been noisy, but it would have been the right thing to do. And it would have been cheaper and more effective than what we have today.
"Nations have no permanent friends or enemies, only permanent interests."
> as long as we don't need to be involved in their regulatory or legal regimes
The only reason the trade is easy in EU (and with it non-EU partners) is these regulations. Countries that choose to stay outside but wanted access to our market (like Norway, Switzerland, etc.) - had to accept the regulations. So I highly doubt you'll get your wish.
You're in for a rough awakening if you think the EU is your friend
> Canada's Bill C-22 Would Force Encryption Backdoors
> Signal, Windscribe, and NordVPN say they'll pull out of Canada before building surveillance infrastructure. The biggest threat to encrypted communications in a Western democracy since Australia's 2018 law.
https://stateofsurveillance.org/news/canada-bill-c22-lawful-...
+
> European Commission Revives Push for Encryption Backdoors in ProtectEU Strategy, Framing Mass Surveillance as “Lawful Access”
> The EU’s ProtectEU strategy quietly sketches the blueprint for a backdoor.
https://reclaimthenet.org/eu-protecteu-strategy-encryption-b...
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 go on all day.
Or did/does things like extraordinary rendition to Guantanamo, or the illegal rendition of Canadian citizen Maher Arar to a Syrian torture facility while he was traveling through the US, or even just taking tourists phones and looking at the anti-Trump memes they've shared and detaining them.
Any "libertarian" American pointing fingers at Europe and Canada as somehow more repressive is living in an ideological echo chamber. The targets are (sometimes) different but every "western democracy" set up oppressive regimes post-9/11 that should outrage anybody.
Both "left" and "right" in the US are living in a delusional world if they think their constitution is worth jack shit as any kind of protection in the 21st century.
The EU itself is becoming increasingly integrated with the free movement, common currency, aligned education system etc etc, but these things take a lot of time, not the least identity-wise. For sure, my children feel more European than I did growing up in what was then a non-member state.
So outright membership is likely not the route for overseas friends, but it seems we are inexorably moving towards a closer cooperation between a group of democratic countries outside the sphere of non-democratic China and ever more erratic US. Hopefully this will be an association which is less dependent on one single member than the western world has been under US lead.
It seems very likely the EU, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, and the UK would be part of this. Japan and Korea are still very US-dependent but given the lack of enthusiasm the US is showing its former allies, this may change quickly. I also expect growing cooperation with some of the south-American countries.
The world is definitely under realignment politically.
Good, if the middle power democracies don't align/work together they are going to get torn apart in the struggle between the US and China.
Non-aligned movement 2: electric boogaloo
They're very clearly aligned
Not really with the US anymore.
Anyway, I think you missed this reference: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Non-Aligned_Movement
Errrrr...... this has nothing to do with the struggle between USA and China.
It is 100% about Trump.
This has been brewing since George W Bush. Obama made a valiant attempt at normalising relations with Europe but I don't think any future US president has any hope of reversing this now.
Trump is a symptom not the disease, when he's gone the people who supported him and voted for him still exist and another Trump-like figure is almost inevitable given they've basically ploughed and planted that field to grow the next one and who's to say NeoTrump isn't going to be smarter.
The other democracies can no longer count on the US as a stable ally the way we have in the past (whether that trust was misplaced is a matter of perspective).
Simply put, you did it twice, We can't rely on them not doing it again.
That and nobody believes that if the Democrats get back in the driver’s seat that they will correct all the disgusting things Trump did.
Americans voted for that clown regime twice.
They cannot and should not be trusted anymore.
IMO it’s the 2 party system in the US that make it more vulnerable for things like this to happen
Trump is absolutely a malicious imbecile, but the US is a country that willingly voted him in twice.
Removing Trump doesn't remove fundamental issues with the US
70% of Canadian exports are to the US. 6% to the EU. Why would e.g. Poland want to enter a trade war with the US on Canada's behalf?
Because the US is going to throw Poland under the bus without even considering once if it yields a short-term benefit.
Under the bus again, I might add
That's rich considering it was France and the UK that threw Poland under the bus despite having a signed defense pact. The US just came in to clean up the mess.
I am under impression that some other nation was involved in cleaning up. If you can even call it cleaning up.
I don't think they're talking about WWII.
If Stewie punched me, It doesn't mean Quagmire didnt.
WW2 ended with Yalta conference where Roosevelt agreed to Stalin's proposition of giving Poland to USSR's sphere of influence, making Poland (and rest of EE) their puppet state.
Churchil wanted to pressure Stalin to leave Poland (and at least parts of EE) independent and even considered "Operation Unthinkable".
At least that's what I think the guy above referenced.
That's pretty much what happened. Trouble was the stakes were already high, if Starlin didn't yield to a bluff (had one been pursued) it would have been an embarrassing backdown and a show of weakness on part of the allies.
"Bluff" because no one other than perhaps Stalin would have followed through—to essentially extend WWII (this time between former allies).
So pragmatism was the order of the day, thus Poland and EE were sacrificed.
If "70% of Canadian exports are to the US", that's probably why the US has so much leverage, and I can see why the Canadian government would like a change. Hence the need for a rebalancing of trade partnerships.
I'd like to take a closer look at what exactly Canada is exporting to the US, and what exactly the EU is importing from elsewhere, to see if there's a match. I'd rather buy from Canada than from Russia. Or China. Or the US.
I bought a dbrand case from Canada last week. Even the packaging is funnier (in a comical way) than US products.
Sorry, my brain is fried by a cold :).
Wouldn't being strongly aligned with the EU give Canada a lot more leverage in trade discussions with the US?
No
Imagine they were in the EU. The EU could leverage the trade bazooka in the current tariff war.
Even if Canada doesn't join the EU, there is a lot of mutual benefit from an economic and military defense pact (beyond NATO, which is nearly dead).
Deals right now are intended to increase the trades between Canada and reducing those with the US, in little improvement steps.
If in 10 years the ratio moves from 70/6 to 50/26, the situation will be vastly different.
The options are not black and white
Because the US is wreaking havoc world wide. The US cannot be trusted anymore.
Better remove the bandaid now then wait until you are screwed.
People now see China as the reliable partner. This will be a multigenerational change.
Isn't the point that there already is one?
So the assumption is trading with Canada = trade war with US? Canada is abused pretty hard it seems...
It's not that they want to enter a trade war with Trump, it's that there's large room for growth in trade between Canada and Poland (your example).
Since Trump is hostile to trade with both parties there's an opportunity to replace lost US trade that's probably not coming back.
Trump has weakened himself and his allies where as mutual trade between Canada and the EU makes both stronger.
Because Trump is trade warring everyone.
The middle democracies will do better fighting together and not deal with US individually.
Funny, to justify Brexit numbers like these were meaningless
Because the US is likely to ally with Russia over Poland.
Polish export to US is about 3% of its total export and import - about 5% of Poland's total import. Not much to lose, honestly. We trade more with Czech Republic.
Polish export to EU is 74% of its total export and import is about 60% of its total import.
Economically - whatever's good for EU is good for Poland and US barely matters.
What about the importance of that trade. The US exports a lot of critical things that cannot be supplied from elsewhere. Everyone is heavily reliant on American technology.
So the implication is continue doing that?
I’ve always been told don’t let perfect be the enemy of good, and the journey of 1000 miles starts with a single step.
The lesson here is that you can’t rely on the US anymore. Not for military protection, not for defence procurement, and not for trade or supply chain. That legacy has ended entirely by choice of the United States.
The problem has moved beyond monetary trade value and into existential risk.
Like what specifically? Only services come to mind. Any hardware is produced in Asia, in fabs that use equipment from Netherlands.
The hardware is produced in Asia but American controlled. its still a dependency on being supplied by American companies.
"Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
That is just tech. What about fuel? machinery. https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-us-trade/
Yes, but services are easier to replace than hardware. And control is something you have, and then you don't have if the country in which you operate decides otherwise (or US presidents throws another tantrum).
Companies use AWS because it is there and others used it, so they got ball rolling. It doesn't mean one couldn't replace it with another service, most probably more pricey one. If there would be some kind of war, then one doesn't need to have servers in US, and European ones are right there.
You can't easily replace e.g. lithium or other metals.
Fuel is problematic, but there are places that are closer that could sell them (middle east, if we ignore current Russian state of mind).
As for machinery, it is hard to guess what kind. Germany produces a lot of it, and I would guess China also.
Not sure about pharmaceuticals.
Generally US is not our greatest import partner, China is. And we have a big internal market also.
After decades of globalization, everyone is just extremely dependent on everyone.
I think hardware is a bit complicated by the way. A lot of hardware is also not US controlled. For instance ARM Holdings is British, Japanese, or global depending on how you look at it and quite a lot of vendors rely on ARM's reference designs. Europe also has a lot of important chip designers, but they are more focused on embedded systems and support chips, like NXP and ST Microelectronics.
"Only services" covers a lot of critically important things. Clouds services and payment systems, for example. Even just one American company like AWS could turn off a huge chunk of European economies.
Why European governments and increasingly companies are trying to move away to European alternatives. It all starts small, but e.g. a bunch of governments are already disentangling from Office. The sale of the maintainer of the Dutch DigiD infrastructure to a US company has been blocked (would have happened without any blockers a few years ago). Countries are reducing US arms purchases in favor of European alternatives.
It's like turning a mammoth tanker, but it is slowly happening.
Let's just hope we have critical mass before the right-wing populists take over, big tech has been intensively lobbying them in recent years [1]. So much 'for the people', like they always proclaim.
[1] https://www.brusselstimes.com/1916422/us-tech-giants-allying...
There is no struggle, China has already won.
We should keep open to the option that they might both loose.
In what way has "China already won"?
I am not OP and obviously "winning" reduces too many dimensions into one. But I will say that from my recent two visits to the country that I was pretty astonished by the speed at which they are building things. Cars, Buildings, Tech Hubs, Factories. You blink twice and a new tech company plops up somewhere making high end drones or humanoid robots or CNC machines or innovative 3d printers. It feels like there is an absolute abundance of electrical and mechanical engineers in that country and funding to match. I am not making any comments on the politics of it all, but I have not seen this anywhere else in the world - perhaps it exists but I am not aware of it.
Agreed, but on other dimensions China is still 150 years behind the West. It’s important to keep this progress in perspective.
Go on, on which dimensions is China 150 years behind the West?
Creativity, innovation, freedom? 10 guys in a room can't compete for long against hundreds of millions or billions pursuing their own separate interests. Sure, they can steal, but they can't create to the same degree if at all.
For some of us, it mimics late 19th century europe where the rate of innovation perhaps was only matched by the lack of regard for cost, safety or need.
I think we are closer to seeing the Chinese Hindenburg than Arpanet or Moon voyage or some other bewildering humanity joining initiative.
Its inarguable that the industrial revolution brought tons of wealth quickly to the UK. But one, having past it all, has to wonder if the child work force, insanely cramped victorian houses, constant deaths due to smog, polluted water etc could not have been entirely avoided by reducing "innovation" speed.
Is the existing suffering of the Chinese system worth the economic growth? For its own middle class, the answer is probably yes. But systemic conditions like limiting the universities places to top 30% students, means you have a permanent underclass that cannot join the white collar jobs.
Is that required to have a cheap, hardworking manufacturing and construction industries? Maybe. But reinventing a class system that has a few steps removed from slavery as an "economic miracle" and "neck breaking speed innovation" feels a bit icky when they could take 5 years longer and treat people better.
We are arguably close to post scarcity, and instead of building post-capitalism instruments (like libraries could be imagined as), we are just perfecting the economic conditions of capitalism which require an inordinate amount of cheap labour and state violence.
Billionaires are building bunkers instead of museums, they can see the end game of this system they benefit from and its not a good one. Like I can't understand whats the point of winning "the economy" if we end up in a post nuclear hellscape of ecological collapse, but number must go up I have been told.
I do not think it was necessary for it to be that bad for the industrial revolution to happen. Possibly displacing agricultural workers through the agricultural revolution and enclosures accelerated it?
It is certainly not necessary for economic development now. You probably cannot give people in less developed economies the same pay and working conditions, but you can provide the basics and relatively decent treatment.
> In what way has "China already won"?
The US has depleted their missile stockpile and can no longer defend anybody. Countries in the Middle East are moving away from the US and forming their own alliances. Taiwan knows that the US cannot do anything to help them. South Korea also knows. The US has weaponized the US Dollar, forcing countries out of the SWIFT system if they don't do what they are told. As a result, the CHIPS system has become the alternative. China understands better how the economy works, with the Belt and Road Initiative. The US government doesn't understand how the economy works, and is run by a bunch of complete m orons.
You've said a bunch of things that don't really equate to "China already won".
> You've said a bunch of things that don't really equate to "China already won".
There is no path for victory for the US, where it remains the world's reserve currency. China will become the world's reserve currency by 2032.
You are simply in denial. Everything that I wrote points to China winning.
> China will become the world's reserve currency by 2032.
China doesn’t want this for the same reason that some Americans currently in power don’t want the USD to be the world’s reserve currency - it comes with an export and trade cost.
There are also many structural and political reasons why the Yuan can’t play this role not least of which are transparency, the peg and monetary supply independence.
Reserve currency status entirely depends on whether the issuing authority has the ability to drop a munition (literally or figuratively) on the head of anyone who dares to counterfeit the currency.
China's military and soft influence are improving but until they get that good, USD will remain the reserve.
Because, imagine the scenario where the US simply counterfeits the renminbi. What is China's recourse? Spicy statements by Wang Yi in toothless international forums?
This has to be the funniest thing I’ve read for a while. China still has two exchange rates.
Folks can keep their heads in the sand for pretty long, as long as they look just at progressively smaller circle around them and ignore rest of reality.
The momentum China already gained, and gaining more every day is well beyond anything in the west. Plus if you consider the position they are rising from, its properly meteoric. Nobody knows future, but its rather easy to continue projection with current, or even a bit slower pace and within 1 or 2 decades, situation will be pretty clear from any objective perspective.
Above is purely technological/process progress. Add US making enemy of whole world in one brilliant move, something that is practically irreversible in upcoming decades, and situation is clear. Military (without ammo) alone won't give you much negotiating power. LLMs can be replicated elsewhere with rather little cost, and soon some small bleeding edge advantage will be largely meaningless for most practical tasks.
It doesn't even matter what near future brings, this is settled and no amount of denial from US or self-patting is changing that.
It’s meant in the sense similar to “omae wa mou shindeiru” (“you’re already dead”), i.e. that defeat has already become unavoidable.
I’m not sure I agree with “already won”, that’s an extreme position, but there are consequences to all the things s/he says. It may be a death of 1000 cuts, or it may hit a tipping point, but the us is certainly walking blindly down the “let China win” road.
As a joint us/uk citizen, even I would prefer to deal with China than the USA these days. Predictability is really useful in business, and narcissistic man child presidents aren’t predictable.
Every single point you've made is either straight up untrue or comes with caveats. I hate to quote Trump but, in light of Brandolini's law: "Wrong."
> China understands better how the economy works,
Many people avoid Chinese stocks like the plague because the system is still half communist and as a foreign investor you get some paper in a company on Cayman Island instead of real direct ownership. That keeps me from buying their stocks and I'm not the only one.
China has the largest combined collective penis size. Around 500 million men (I'm discounting young kids and the elderly) times 4.5 inches (according to statistics). No other power on earth has that penis size.
Look around and visit any country, you'll see chinese made and sold goods inundating everymarket, build infrastructures.
It used to be chinese made goods sold by local or western companies. Nowadays bar a few exceptions these are chinese goods sold directly by chinese brands/companies.
And many of those products are not only good they're becoming good in ways nowhere else can do.
Because, unlike the other superpower, they don't seem to be losing?
The USA is repeatedly punching itself in the face over and over though, so it's not a fair fight.
Their culture prioritises economic outputs not entitlements.
Go do some research on China - it's economy is in the toilet and its leadership has destroyed much of it's success, foreign capital and companies have fled to India, Vietnam, Mexico, Indonesia.
Your lament of "Oh no China is the best in the world and only getting better!!!" is long long out of date.
With 2 billion people you’re absolute power. Internal market with middle class size of whole United States. No need for wallstreet and American style financial engineering. Producer of 80% goods for Europe. I mean buying something mainstream not made in China is barely possible. Technically there are some challenges like plane engines or lithography. But they’ll nail it. Trust me.
This is being heavily downvoted, but it's dangerously close to true.
In ten years the downvoters will not only agree with this, but have moved on to "and that's a good thing".
One thing that is common about middle democracies is that prioritize a bureaucratic elite structure over an entrepreneurship culture, while both the US and China embrace entreprenuership wholeheartedly.
If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves.
> 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 whatever that means and the US is just that politics aren't corrupted enough yet that they can buy whatever they want.
I did some admin work for the startup around 5 years ago and I have to say EU countries specially mine Sweden is far more clear. In USA you are basically hopeless without a lawyer. but I did a search and for clarity of rule I searched and this came up using AI:
World Bank’s broad “Regulatory Quality” measure supports that direction: Sweden scored 95.28/100 and the US 90.57/100 in its latest comparable 2023 data. I couldn't find EU wide score.
I wanted to help someone to get work visa and I thought it is like Sweden and you just fill a small form, oh boy! We hired a lawyer for just filling the US side application.
Heavily country-dependent, in practice. The UK lets you set up a company online cheaply, quickly, and filing is easy. Insurance is plentiful and sensible, as are business bank accounts. The law is mostly straight-forward. Setting up a German limited-liability company OTOH involves putting down some ghastly large sum as a guarantee.
But yes, Americans are told they have the freest speech and the freest markets, and don't seem to question either.
It's interesting to me that people generally see Europe's regulations as interfering with entrepreneurship, while they see American decisions that give more power to multinational corporations at the expense of smaller companies as a normal part of a free market.
Don't you see that the same bureaucracy that adds friction to entrepreneurship also serves the purpose of protecting the incumbents?
It is odious to start a company in the EU. There are many accounts of this on HN itself.
"…as a normal part of a free market."
That's unfettered capitalism at work—"free" implies no bounds. Multinational corporations have never been more powerful now than at anytime in history.
And that hurts the free market. A free market should be transparent, have low barriers to entry, and not be dominated by monopolies or cartels. There's nothing free about American capitalism.
well you see, maybe one day they'll be the CEO of that multi-trillion dollar company, so it's better to err on the side of capitalism. /s
The CCP retains too much power over businesses and business leaders for me to consider them to "embrace entrepreneurship wholeheartedly."
Because the US isn't exactly on the same path, right?
On the same path and on the same point of the path are two very different things.
"If they changed that they'd perhaps become world powers themselves."
If they were to change some within the citizenry would stand to gain at the expense of others. Inequality would increase.
Seems—for now—middle democracies aren't prepared to pay the high price of social upheaval such a policy would create.
The US _also_ embraces rent-seeking, regulatory capture, and the externalization of social and environmental costs as entrepreneurship.
Didn’t China force Meta to unwind Manus? In no way is China embracing entrepreneurs wholeheartedly.
The US has something called CFIUS. This is normal statecraft
I believe Manus was a Chinese company.
But Meta isn’t
This is just wrong. The US prioritizes billionaires over entrepreneurs.
> The president of the European Commission has backed proposals for Canada to become the EU's first "associate member".
Article 238 of the original Treaty of Rome, which is now article 217 TFEU, provides for the EU (or its precursors) to enter into "association agreements" with third-states, e.g. Turkey has one of them. A lot of current EU members (e.g. Greece) had them before becoming members.
A lot of 1970s/1980s sources referred to these states as "associate members of the EEC" – but it seems like everyone has forgotten that.
I’m not sure this is a good thing for Canada.
The EU feels like an incomplete experiment. Not strong enough to actually be a single market. But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones.
The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
Consider: the US is a (somewhat) greenfield project, while the EU is a brownfield refactoring.
These sorts of refactorings take time, even more so if done by "committee". The good thing is that explicit interfaces have to be created thereby (hopefully) increasing adaptability and resilience over time.
The US was greenfield 2 centuries ago. It currently has a lot more technical (political?) debt than the EU. Some reforms are long overdue.
I want this one to succeed, but refactors often fail and revert to the original code structure :)
> The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
I agree, but there are huge barriers to taking this step. You need a common identity to create a nation. Americans have one, so do other large nations. The EU does not.
The EU is an ongoing experiment as well.
Europe’s biggest problem, I think, is its lost mojo. There’s plenty of good ingredients, plenty of challenges too. It can still go either way. Hell, at this rate it might outperform simply because US and China blow up due to domestic problems.
The thing about mojo is that it’s super hard to predict. It might stay where it is and Europe’s share of global GDP might decline to nothing. Or it might rekindle out of nowhere due to some impulse.
Either way, middle democracies are a somewhat threatened species now, and from their individual PoV an imperfect union might be much better than efficiently staying on their own.
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-productivity culture)
Regulation is possible without paralyzing industry. Laws about the internet are possible without stifling freedom. Central planning is possible without crashing the economy so bad you end up with a regime change. It all comes down to execution and for the most part, it's been a series of failed experiments.
As much as I want a happy future for Canadians and Europeans, I just don't see the odds being super favourable.
> Europe’s biggest problem, I think, is its lost mojo.
Europe's biggest problem is that every decision can be vetoed by one of the member states. Which in practice means that the EU has very little power.
"But still able to create additional annoying regulations on top of nation level ones."
It seems to me the EU is overburdened with trivial regulations (like regulating the maximum power consumption of domestic vacuum cleaners) rather than prioritizing core issues of its single market, manufacturing, trade, etc.
Trouble is small vested interests hold overly powerful sway over EU-wide policy. The example above is a case in point, individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted.
You're correct, annoying regulations are bloating the EU bureaucracy making it lethargic and uncompetitive.
> individual member states should be able to set their own regulations independently if deemed warranted.
People proclaim this with such confidence, especially in the UK before the Brexit years I must say, and yet there are so many arguments against it.
First, accepting this goes against a core tenet of the single market, since the single market for vacuum cleaners is now split into 27 little markets. We thus need 27 regulatory bodies to each investigate, and then make a political decision, on the maximum power setting of domestic vacuum cleaners. Then, producers in China will have to make (up to) 27 different models of vacuum cleaners. This is certainly not going to be cheaper, completely destroys the famous Brussels effect [0], all for some token amount of "sovereignty".
Nations states can sovereignly decide to delegate this process of rule making to Brussels, and domestic vacuum cleaners are a perfectly mundane "case in point" to showcase the benefits of this process. The EU is far from a perfect union, but throwing these frankly naive arguments around will not help it much.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brussels_effect
> The EU needs to be truly Federal to succeed economically. That might create uniform regulations with more uniform regulations and actually make Europe competitive.
EU already has uniform regulations, what are you talking about? It's also the third largest economy in the world, as uncompetitive as it is.
No it does not. There's a lot of gold plating happening at the national level that goes beyond EU regulations. It's EU regulations + 27 national regulations in reality. The EU economies are still too different and the population too unwilling to have a truly US-style single market.
What exactly is the difference between that and 50 states having their own regulations?
You seems to be arguing that a U.S. style single-market would be an improvement.
But for whom, people or companies?
It's an improvement for the economy and that mainly benefits the shareholders. How you redistribute those gains more broadly is an open question. But keeping inefficiencies in place to protect workers at all costs is a losing strategy in the long term - see: Soviet Union.
Unsurprisingly, people in different parts of the world hold different values. Europe is generally more focused on actual people and how their lives live, than simply accumulation of wealth among the few. It is unsurprising that they focus on different things.
The EU is not a fiscal union. It is also not yet a single capital market.
I am not sure, if I see the example of US as federation, it might work well for corporations only, but people have nothing, uniformity doesn't work because not all populations have the same needs/expectations
Maybe, but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU.
Not because I think regulations are bad. But regulations need to be well designed with clears lines on what the Federal / State are allowed to do.
Its hard because its 27 different countries, but they are working on making it less hard. Many startups are made in Europe, but then bought up (often by Americans) or moves to USA when its time to expand outside the single countries boarders. Canada has the same problem.
Canada has made it pretty clear that they do not want to be part of the big country south of it, so they will have to find a way to create large companies that stays. Doing this together with a market of 450 million people seems like a good idea.
> but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU.
They are working in it: https://www.eu-inc.org/
I have no clue whether that will be a success, but at least they have recognised that problem as well.
> but it’s way too difficult to do business in the EU
Been doing it for decades. Not a billionaire and not interested in becoming one; in the US I would've been one. But never had issues.
EU is a failed experiment that must be stopped.
We disagree.
Good news. This world needs more cooperation and friendship.
You may not be interested in politics, but politics is interested in you!
Nations don't have friends, they have interests.
Define what "friendship" means here and how that differs from "economic or political interests", please?
It means shared values and a willingness to hold long-term commitments.
It's not about friendship but money.
It's more about predictability.
America's become erratic and untrustworthy. America's made a deliberate choice make its reputation worse.
Eh, on a long enough timeline we have seen this and been there before. US is the beacon of democracy and the free world until it is not, and then until it again is. Depending on who is speaking and about whom and when.
Most of these attention grabbing statements by politicians are usually about scoring political points at home. The only thing worthy of judgement are hard facts, and excruciating details, which are yet to materialize on this topic.
"US is the beacon of democracy"
40 years ago I probably would have agreed with this statement - these days, not at all.
This was a kind of example, and not really the point of my comment.
Though to illustrate further, there are many examples one might find of US acting undemocratically even 40 years ago.
So, politicians will talk, governments will be in power, and the observers will discuss. My invitation was simply to discuss known facts not political rhetoric. And main facts are largely absent and unknown.
There is a friendly trusting common values part to this too.
Why not both?
Friendship is about values?
The true treasure is the friendship we made along the way.
This would be Canada getting down leveled to the minor leagues. Yes there are a few issues with the US, but Canada is vastly better off playing on the world stage under the wings of the US than it would be as the EU’s “associate member.” The next phase of history is going the be China and the US and then everyone else scrambling for scraps.
US governance has become so unreliable, destructive and inane, with little prospect of reverting back to what is once was, given the US’ internal political and societal landscape, that being under its “wings” now constitutes a major risk for any of its allies. Canada is correct to diversify.
I hear you, but the US is hardly the only country on the planet that’s had a few disruptive elections, including the EU BTW. Making generational decisions over one presidential cycle is rather short sighted.
> I hear you, but the US is hardly the only country on the planet that’s had a few disruptive elections
When it's Hungary it's funny, because it doesn't matter, when it's the US it's not, because it fucks up the entire world's order. It really is not that hard to understand the problem
Two actually*
Mistakes happen but this same buffoon got elected twice. That's no fluke, deep down the american population likes him enough to give him two chances.
It’s been going on since 2016, which at the end of the current term will already be roughly half a generation. And what has been destroyed in the first half of this term alone will take longer than that to rebuild.
While there are troubling developments in EU countries as well, there is also the converse (e.g. Hungary), and the EU parliamentary systems are significantly more resilient than the US two-party presidential system.
And if Trump had just faded into obscurity after 2021 we probably wouldn't see this kind of realignment, but the fact he got reelected makes it look much less like a fluke and more like an USA that's increasingly unreliable on the international stage
Not giving you what you want != unreliable. It’s been extremely reliable for folks that want other things.
Imposing tariffs one day and TACOing out a few days later and infinitum is not reliable. There is no 4D chess going on, only incompetency and self-enrichment.
The US is on the path of Russia since the end of the iron curtain, moving to a kleptocracy ruled by (tech br)olichargs.
The electoral + two-party system makes it nearly impossible to break out of this.
What in the world is this train of thought? Do you not understand that the American President has directly threatened Canadian sovereignty multiple times over the last 2 years, even if under the auspices of “trolling” or “jokes”? In addition to that, the President is seeking direct control over Canadian trade relationships, control over its natural resources and all while attempting to destroy its industrial output.
This ignorance makes it very clear that the American voting populace does not take positive relations with erstwhile allies seriously. Increased trade integration may not be the ideal situation for Canada, but nothing about the situation is ideal. At least we won’t be subjugating ourselves to hostile hegemons like China and the USA.
This kind of move by Canada indicates that perhaps it believes the US to be unreliable and in decline?
A necessary move, because the US isnt acting like an ally anymore.
Hence the increased cooperation and agreements with the EU and China.
What specifically do you mean “under the wings of the US?”
Well, it's up for Canada to decide, right? RIGHT?
They'll be right back in two years
Naïve American exceptionalism. It is going to be generations before Canadians could possibly be on as friendly terms as we were just 5 years ago.
They'll undo like 30% of the damage and call that a win.
I'm sorry, but this comment feels insufferable. I feel so much eye roll from reading it. USA is not "major leagues" by the measures that the rest of the world cares to size itself up by.
If there's an apt non-baseball metaphor, it's perhaps that USA is a circus we are compelled to pay attention to for now. We'd rather just not
And won't the dems just undo all this tariff nonsense anyway? Or is Canada acting like a bitter ex after a breakup who vows to take their seething to the grave no matter what
I think the metaphor you're looking for is from the "USA as an abusive ex" angle, not a "bitter ex" metaphor that shifts blame to others...
Bitter ex? This is amazing.
The US is a completely broken country, and simply switching governments will not change that. Without a complete and utter change in how that entire country operates -- including dissolution -- no country should ever normalize relations with it again.
The US is by far the world's most dangerous rogue nation. It is a terroristic nation. It is a bully. It not only elected a rapist imbecile to president, it elected him again, seeking a round two after the utter debacle the first term was, and the disastrous results are exactly what everyone could predict, but you know...this is who America is now.
And a big reason Canada is moving on is that it's pretty clear that the US is a country in spectacular decline, and it is China's century now. Which is maybe why the US is electing disgusting garbage like Trump -- and he's certainly not alone, and there are various garbage "football coach" type creeps filling the entire US political class -- lamenting the position they once held, now going down the Russian/Putin path where they'll accelerate the crash just to reminisce about a past that mostly never existed.
And how does that make you feel?
I don't know. How did writing the farcical nonsense about Canada being "down-levelled" make you feel? Must have felt like you're clutching onto a delusion?
Don't worry, America still has the cartoonishly pathetic "Board of Peace" (though the Arab despots might not be as eager now that the US got completely humiliated by some isolated rogue theocracy), and your close allies Argentina and El Salvador.
American exceptionalism is astonishing to see in the wild.
The next phase of history is China's, and broadly Asia's. Everyone on the planet, but Americans, can see this. It is indisputable.
Everyone else is finding a place within that new reality, and no one else wants to play along with American delusions that they're going to hold onto their place and everyone else are their supplicants.
At this stage, the US should be begging every like-minded nation to be friends. Instead you elected a grotesque embarrassment farce that coddles up to two-bit clowns like Milei, while endlessly attacking allies. ROFL.
Enjoy the coming crash.
Yeah, we don't want to be under the "umbrella" of a terroristic idiocracy menace. You can become the worldwide pariah on your own, without our offering of legitimacy for your terrible behaviour.
Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49723424 (49 points 2 hours ago, 120 comments)
If I’m Canada I look for a trade agreement rather than associate membership - no reason to put your eggs in one basket.
As an American, I continue to be sad and tired that our current president is somehow allowed to unilaterally destroy a very successful and thriving trade partner via arbitrary tariffs that have already been ruled illegal and while it doesn’t make a damned bit of difference I’m sorry about it.
We have that trade agreement (CETA). Negotiated by the Trudeau gov't a long time ago.
Notably many member states (incl. France) have not fully ratified it. The majority of its benefits are in place but not all.
Which doesn't bode well for the actual on the ground reality of any "associate member status."
I expect it will be mostly symbolic/diplomatic.
> I continue to be sad
Don't be. Trump is a necessary and welcome wake up call. We Canadians needed Trump's shock of reality.
The truth is that, for more than a century, the main trait of being Canadian was simply not being American and not trusting Americans.
In 1775 George Washington ordered the invasion of southern Quebec and we resisted. After the American revolution we received an huge influx of Loyalists, the Americans that didn't want to be part of the U.S.; we say the American Revolution created 2 countries: yours and ours. In 1812 Americans raised war against us, as a continuation of the Napoleonic wars. Although we were still a British colony, we fought back, invaded Washington DC and set the White House on fire. In 1890, the McKinley Tariffs were meant to subjugate us, the same way Trump wants to do now [1]. They backfired, made us stronger.
But in the 80's the Reagan-Mulroney trade agreement fooled us. We became too reliant, friendly and confident to the Americans. It was a dangerous illusion. The Comanche, Apache and Navajo have learned too late that you can't trust Americans. Luckily for us, Trump reminded us that lesson on time, before it would be too late.
[1] https://canadiangeographic.ca/articles/the-u-s-tariff-act-of...
funnily, they already have a trade agreement, though not fully ratified.
From Blackberry to a budding VFX industry and many other sustainable businesses to come out of Canada has always made it seem like a very EU-like philosophy. This will be great for fair trade.
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!
Blackberry is a sustainable business?
Blackberry might not be, but RIM are still around, QNX is still in use.
I have no idea how we do it, but I think we should somehow ban the expansion of all the existing unions (EU, CIS, NATO, whatever else we got). The overall worldwide tension is pretty high, but now
- US goes after South America and Greenland
- EU goes after Canada and Georgia (country), which is just ridiculous in terms of geography
- Russia invades Ukraine and goes after Eastern Europe and Middle-East to some extent
- China does its expansion too
Even though some of these actions are just political nonsense, it still increases the overall level of escalation. This is not what the world needs right now
Trade agreements and unions — yes, please; yet another political or military union expansion — please, God, no. I understand that EU is a mix of both, but also do think that this is a purely political game against Trump
- US goes after South America and Greenland
- EU goes after Canada and Georgia (country), which is just ridiculous in terms of geography
Absolute brain dead comparison
Europe definitely needs to find replacements for the USA as a trusted partner. The US now supports Russia in its war against Ukraine, imposes random tariffs, pressures European companies over DEI (I'm not particularly woke myself, but I think equal opportunities regardless of race, for example, is a good idea), and makes threats against Greenland, Canada and Iceland. It also puts pressure on free speech and EU digital rules: the US imposed visa bans on former EU Commissioner Thierry Breton, an architect of the Digital Services Act, and four anti-disinformation activists, and I believe it also had his Microsoft email disabled. Add to that climate denial, the war on science, threats to leave NATO, antivax etc. I believe many countries will unfortunately turn to China, since even China is more predictable than the US.
If that be the case, maybe we the USA ought to take the UK and Ireland as an associate state of the USA.
Ireland is part of the EU.
Bienvenue les amis.
Oui, j'ai hâte que l'on partage d'avantage avec l'Europe que les É-U...
Bonjour du Québec.
Salut ben fort d'Autriche ! On joue tous ensemble. Cheers to closer ties, Freunde.
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...
They would probably argue “European nation” is cultural and not geographic. Morocco is officially Muslim and not a full democracy, the EU isn’t ready for that I don’t think.
I’m hopeful that closer ties with Europe could give Canadians a chance to learn from European agriculture and food culture.
Canada needs a new perspective in how we produce and sell food here. I’d love to see us move away from a food system dominated by crappy US-style highly engineered, ultra-processed products and toward a much greater variety of fresh and minimally processed foods, stronger regional production, and a richer everyday food culture.
I would welcome EU grocery chains and food producers to shake things up here and bring some sanity back to Canadian food culture.
The "Common Foe" principle at work.
Could retroactively mean Earth Union. Let the good ones like Korea and Japan also join.
I'm proud to live in the EU because for all its faults we have one thing going for us, we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave.
In a world in which the other great powers revive the Monroe Doctrine or threaten their magnitude smaller neighbors with annexation we're not doing so badly. There is an inherent pettiness, weakness and fake strength in autocracy and force and it's often why I think the EU receives so much disproportionate hate.
>we seem to be the only large institution that countries still want to voluntarily join, and can voluntarily leave.
Really? Because there's this organisation called CUSMA that nations can voluntarily leave (the US) and some want to stay in (Canada).
It's economy is larger than the EU btw.
The UK left, Iceland just voted not to join.
The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.
"Annexing neighbour" is clearly a non-goal of the EU. One of the reason of its existence is to put an end to european countries invading each others all the time.
Iceland said no because they are afraid of overfishing in their water.
It isn't an unreasonable fear, especially given their dependance on that food source. Their "No" was perfectly reasonnable from what I can see.
Britain's "Leave" campain was drowning in lies, exageration, and british-empire nostalgia.
Those two situations are very different.
> The UK left
Yes, you can read all about how that came about, and how it's going.
> The EU does not have a military to annex any neighbours with. Individual states do, but non are really great powers any more.
You're projecting an American ideal. Not all nations are--nor want to be--America, and we're thankful for that.
> Yes, you can read all about how that came about, and how it's going.
Yes, it seems to have made no difference. economically - economy performing much the same as France and Germany. Lots of lives saved by the faster covid vaccine rollout which is a plus IMO.
> You're projecting an American ideal. Not all nations are--nor want to be--America, and we're thankful for that.
You are missing my point. Not annexing anyone when its not an option because you cannot does not prove anything.
I have never even been to America - why would I project an American ideal?
Do you seriously consider invasion of other countries a good thing??? What the hell is wrong with people
> Do you seriously consider invasion of other countries a good thing
No, of course not. I really do not understand how you interpreted what I said as saying taht.
Can people please read what I said in the context of the comment i replied to!
Do you really think the USA could annex anything but (maybe) Cuba, after seeing how the Iran war is playing out?
Australia is also seeking a closer alliance with EU and Canada. The world is moving on to a post Us-hegemony era.
All it took was Trump & Republicans
The world was already moving on from US hegemony. China is already a super power, other economies are growing, and the west in general (i.e. all the countries mentioned here) are a shrinking proportion of the world economy (and population, or military strength).
Not if we kick off WW3 as a last ditch attempt to hold on to the old order ;)
You jest, but if you've ever seen a wounded animal fighting like mad for survival, I wouldn't be so confident that won't be the exact same things that's going to happen.
You don't have to look into the animal kingdom, history works too. No ruling empire has fallen silently and without conflict. Changing the world order always included an aggressive transfer of power
The British Empire dismantling wasn't exactly peaceful, but it could have been much worse. Next to India, everything else becomes a rounding error.
It was mostly peaceful in itself. There was a lot of conflict that followed in the wake of it as borders and power structures were settled. Just in South Asia we had the partition of India, the secession of Bangladesh from Pakistan, the Sri Lankan civil war, and various smaller separatist conflicts.
Meanwhile Poland's share of trade with China is growing over that with Germany: https://notesfrompoland.com/2026/09/16/china-overtakes-germa...
The pivot away from Germany / France is starting and will not stop.
All it took was Merkel and sucking up to Russia.
Is this the path to a Bizarro World future where the Commonwealth realms become associate members of the EU to slowly unBrexit?
I don't hate the idea
I wouldn't be surprised if Scotland eventually leaves UK and joins the EU. Part of the reason they voted to stay in the UK was so that they could remain in the EU, and then brexit happened
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.
They would then have a hard border with England, and would have to untangle their economy from the UK to some extent, which would be extremely disruptive. There will also be complex issues around who gets which citizenship, who would need work visas, a change of currency, etc.
It was known that there was likely to be a Brexit referendum at the time of the Scottish referendum: Cameron had promised one if the Conservatives won the 2015 election.
Yieppieeee!!! Love you Canada! :waves from Italy
Leyen babbles a lot. I have absolutely nothing at all against Canada and EU getting closer, but please don't dance when Leyen whistles - that leads to nothing but uselessness. She should have never been in politics to begin with - the absolutely worst person for the job.
> She should have never been in politics to begin with - the absolutely worst person for the job.
A description that fits a lot of politicians!
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.
Good old broomsticks-for-guns lady.
Good.
We get better cheeses, wines and other fine food.
They get maple syrup, Atlantic lobster and Manitoba flour.
Win, win.
The EU is running out of Europe. I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The EU covers just over 40% of the area of Europe.
Another 40% is in Russia, good luck with that
> I thought Turkey
Oh yeah, that's gonna be hella popular with the voters.
> I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Not white enough for the EU. There is a lot of opposition to even Turkey, which is already in customs union, joining and talks are dead specifically because EU countries do not want immigration from Turkey.
Sure, but Turkey is also an authoritarian autocracy, which I think might be a bit of a problem for the EU.
Turkey has been a candidate member since forever, but instead of addressing the many problems they need to fix before entry, they're making it worse.
That won't be a problem for long. The native Europeans are swinging to the authoritarian right, the newly naturalized are very selectively for liberal democracy - aka the parts that directly benefit them, not the parts that make it liberal, and the liberal democrats are straight out refusing to have kids.
So in 50 years Tukey will border authoritarian regime either way.
Fear that Turkey would be "imminently" joining the EU was one of the scare stories used by the Brexit campaign in the UK.
No, just too corrupt for the EU.
More like not culturally aligned enough.
EU is looking for strong democracies, while none of your suggestions are
im canadian but this feels performative
yes i get it, stick it to the USA. yay patriotism. suddenly thats cool and not problematic for some reason.
and im also all for less restrictive coordination between nations. it's all performative in the end.
but like, this feels basically like "stick it to trump" and not anything meaningful.
I agree and at the same time I'm all for it.
Almost a decade on and most Canadians don't seem to realize we already have CETA (free trade) with the EU. It's not fully fully ratified but it's there. It's why our grocery stores have been slowly filling with European products we never had before (Yay!)
For example: It's already cheaper for me -- as a consumer -- to import sporting goods (skis, etc) from the EU than it is from the US. (And often less shipping hassle too, oddly).
And yet distributor arrangements often still funnel everything through the US, first as "North American distributor" models. Incurring shipping and sometimes even tariff overhead. (Looking at you Scarpa, North America. You suck.)
Even if all of this is symbolic, it may at least shift perceptions on our side of the Atlantic so Canadian businesses at least start looking to Europe more seriously as both importers and exporters.
People often forget our country was built on an east west shipping and transport axis with the St Lawrence (and later the Pacific) as outflow, to supply Europe (mainly Britain). It was only later that north-south trade became more important economically.
Shipping manufactured goods across the Atlantic to European customers may end up cheaper for them than shipping from China in some circumstances.
I'm maybe also a bit biased, I currently work for a European employer.
funny cuz i still cant buy european butter :P
best we can get is "european style"
id love to just move to somewhere in the eu and be able to freely work there. thats how it should be in every country btw. until then, it seems like more performance, which carney has seemingly mastered.
Dairy is highly protected in Canada. For better or for worse.
Exceptions were made for cheeses though. They've dropped significantly in (relative) price and varieties of imports have improved significantly in the last 10 years. Even the most white-bread grocery stores tend to stock a selection of decent European cheeses now.
It's a bit wishy-washy; they're just saying "we're better off working together" not actually doing something.
I can't imaging Canada would be looking to align its standards and laws with the EU. Don't get me wrong, the EU does a lot of things that make it both safer and better, but it makes things more expensive to make, and that only works when there isn't a wild-west next-door-neighbour. It's hard to compete when your biggest and nearest export market has looser labour and product regulations than you.
Of course Canada can do more trade with the EU without broad regulatory alignment, it just seems weird you'd need to announce it.
Please flood the timber market.
Would that means Canadians would be protected by the GDPR and DMA?
No it wouldn't. Other EU associate members have their own data protection laws, some of which align with GDPR
Aye, please no. We don’t want to be the 28th EU state any more than we want to be the 51st EU state.
51st state? Pfff. How about 28th EU country!
Eurovision was just the beginning
Nearly 60% of EU LNG imports come from the USA. If Trump doesn't like Canada to cuddle with the EU, then it won't happen.
This is all a big pain in the back.
The LNG won't come from Canada either. Trudeau notoriously said "there's no business case" for it, but the truth is they can't agree with how to actually get enough of it to the east coast to make a difference, and that's what blocks it. (In fairness the route does go through some very unique environments).
Canadian provinces have a far bigger ability to screw things up for the whole than countries do inside the EU, and people remotely familiar with the EU will understand what a strong statement that is.
If by screw things up you mean retain some level of governance then yes... Canada is a confederation, not a federation.
Canada is definitionally a federation.
Where there's a will, there's a way. There hasn't been a will until now.
The only "way" involves greasing the palms of every special interest group in the way until they have successfully accounted for the whole potential revenue of the intended enterprise, and that's what blocked everything repeatedly.
I'm in Quebec and very familiar with the exact territory this has applied to wrt getting resources out on the east coast, and unless someone was willing to rule by decree to bypass all those entrenched groups it's not happening, and we all know why such decrees would not happen as well.
Good thing EU is investing heavily in renewables then.
Those wind turbines are destroying the scenery, though.
Not as much as 4°C temperature increase will do.
only if you're weird and think they dont look lovely?
Why, do you like them?
Solar panels are even worse. Here in Poland they're covering entire fields in the countryside, I have no idea why they don't build them on parking lots or on factory roofs.
Yes I have no problems with them looks-wise. They don't build them on parking lots/factory roofs because of efficiency. Good solar panels follow the sun, which isnt really a mechanism practical to setup in a parking lot. maintenance is also a lot easier if you have one field generating a gigawatt of power vs having to service 20 parking lots that generate a gigawatt of power. Also obviously the land itself is cheaper in the countryside. Renewables are operating on relatively thing margins profitability wise, so you really want to make the juice worth the squeeze (the main value being sovereignty from other countries as discussed in the thread)
of course. Ive not met a person that doesn't like them, either. I love hiking and have travelled pretty wide across europe.
Solar panels are similarly lovely to see. I'd just as rather see them than a uniform field of corn or maize or somesuch thing. I can't understand the mindset that objects to such things? is it just a straight up childish nimby "I don't want ANYTHING to be built" or would you prefer natural gas+coal power plants ? or any other built structures for that matter (I think they are better than concrete buildings etc - they are white tree-like things, thin with smooth curved surfaces, or rows of curious purple and black panels swiveling to face the sun)
I mean... Different people have different opinions.
I would prefer nuclear
Exactly. I prefer seeing pumpjacks and hydrofracking equipment, just like all red blooded capitalists.
I've never seen a pumpjack nor any hydrofracking equipment. I have seen a few capitalists but I can't be positive they were red-blooded ones (whatever that means).
Petro-states are destroying their trust as they try desperately to cling on to the power fossil fuels have given them. Thankfully this makes renewables even more attractive than just their lower cost.
Maybe this is a naive statement, but it seems like full membership including open borders between Canada and other EU states and adoption of the Euro would also be beneficial to everyone involved.
The UK should continue to be embarrassed and ashamed to leave such an incredible institution, although at this point we can say that they clearly don’t deserve the EU anyway.
Yes but someone will need to step in and adjudicate once everyone in Europe has enough of living in the United States of Germany and there’s another war over it.