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

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. :)

> 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-...

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> 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...

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.

> 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 non-member states, e.g. Turkey has one of them. Many 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 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.

Alberta separatism efforts by the US/Russia are probably about to be cranked up to 11.

This is the same EU who once reduced the Canadian trade minister to tears, and made her denounce the (accurate) fact that, and I quote, "Europe is not capable of signing a trade deal". Notably, the EU has never ratified the Canada FTA and everyone's just sort of pretending it did for convenience's sake.

Nice symbolism, but this is merely being used as leverage in Canada's negotiation with the US. "See, we have other options!" Europe is far more protectionist than the US.

Meanwhile the EU itself is about two years away from being run by the AfD + the Le Pen circus.

Not sure what it really means but Mark Carney is turning out to be one of the the most consequential prime ministers of Canada.

He has an exceptionally poor hand of cards to play but is maximizing any opportunity. Very creditable leadership - even for those who don't agree with everything he does.

I do think this is a lesson for political parties all over the world. You can be pragmatic.

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.

Good news. This world needs more cooperation and friendship.

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.

Previous discussion: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49723424 (49 points 2 hours ago, 120 comments)

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.

Imagine what the EU reaction would be if the United States offered to make bring in the UK or Poland as state(s).

Geopolitical games like this are how real wars eventually start.

As a Canadian, this feels like hopping on board a sinking ship. EU and Canada have both severely underperformed for the last 10 years. I hope encouraging more trade can help.

The sad part is that the US could very well have had made such a trade and companionship deal with Canada themselves. Or even a better one, should they wanted to.

They used to have an excellent relationship with Canada, the UK, with the EU and with other civilized and democratic parts of the world. Until Trump started to undermine everything. And have selfish and unfair demands against everyone.

Now the US has a "comradeship" with Venezuela, Russia and North Korea.

I know that the above is perhaps an exaggeration. But the fact that the US now has worse relationships with almost all the civilized, democratic parts of the world and is bowing down to dictators and authoritarians does not come from external factors. It is all self-inflicted. Including the Iran war and its consequences.

Bienvenue les amis.

I guess it’s a good idea as long as Canada can only join the free economic/labour movement zone.

Trump is not emperor for life, fortunately. He'll be gone in a couple of years. With any luck the upcoming midterms will significantly limit his powers. America will recover from this dark period. Other countries have had dark periods too, like Germany, and recovered.

If that be the case, maybe we the USA ought to take the UK and Ireland as an associate state of the USA.

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.

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...

Why not a free trade agreement?

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.

Yieppieeee!!! Love you Canada! :waves from Italy

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.

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

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.

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

Brian berletic posted a brilliant video on this. This is just Canadian government and oligarchy doing a job of a vassal of USA.

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.

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

Good.

We get better cheeses, wines and other fine food.

They get maple syrup, Atlantic lobster and Manitoba flour.

Win, win.

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.

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.

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?

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.

51st state? Pfff. How about 28th EU country!

The EU is running out of Europe. I thought Turkey or North Africa would be the next steps. Maybe Georgia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.

Aye, please no. We don’t want to be the 28th EU state any more than we want to be the 51st EU state.

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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.