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Canada still has to vote on this. Nothing has happened yet.
It doesn’t matter. We want to join the EU. Canadian’s feel honoured to join.
I mean, we ended our war with Denmark and now share a land border with them. Might as well take the next step.
Keep in mind that right now there is in fact no such thing as an EU Associate Member status and this just a declaration of intent from von der Leyen.
Assuming there is genuine and lasting will from the various EU countries to actually create this, after the experience with the mess that was Switzerland and its special status, any EU Associated Member status will probably be designed as a standard thing rather than a hack for Canada like a hack was done for Switzerland, so it will probably take a while, plus these kinds of thing require unanimous approval of all EU member states (so it’s perfectly possible that countries with Russia-aligned governments like Slovakia will veto it).
At the moment this seems to mainly be talkie-talkie from von der Leyen, and this ex-German Defense Minister who left that post under a dark cloud is not exactly the most competent and serious EU Commission head we ever had or even somebody who genuinelly pushes back on America’s moneyed interests.
It might make more sense for Canada to be an EEA member (an already existing association with the EU that allows non-EU member nations to be in the Single Market) though within of the Single Market even via such a mechanism requires uniformization with EU product and service regulatory norms (don’t really want bleeched chicken or consumer chemical products following a “allowed until proven dangerous” regulatory approval process like in in the US) which I believe would be problematic for Canada right now since the norms they follow are aligned with US regulatory norms, not with the - far stricter - EU norms.
If there’s something I learned during the whole Leave debate when I lived in Britain is that seamless access to a highly integrated Products and Services market like the Single Market is nowhere as simple as “lets tell people what they want to hear” politicians (like von der Leyen and the UK Brexiters) portray it.
As you correctly point out, it’s probable that Canada’s associate membership will result in an EEA-lite relationship with the European Union. I can see the engagement being sectorial.
It’s going to be very hard for the Canadian economy to escape Washington’s regulatory power (Quebec’s French language consumer regulation being actively disputed by the US in trade negotiations is illustrative of this), but an associate membership will set up pathways of closer integration with the EU than having a simple bilateral relationship. It will probably also give Canada more leverage in future talks with the United States (and Mexico).
Obviously, none of this would have happened had Trump not pursued maximalist trade war aims coupled with an inflammatory rhetoric about Canada’s sovereignty. Canada ending up closer to the EU as a result of this (“integrated” within the EU!) is no doubt among the worst American soft power debacles of the postwar era
I would think that now that the alliance is established, any new members who joined could join as limited or associate members for the first X years as the country transitions to full EU membership. Politics takes time and there are likely specific legal frameworks Canada (or any given new EU country) would need to adopt.
It takes a long time to integrate with the EU Single Market even without having to actually design an entire new form of association, which is what an EU Associated Member would be.
All you have to do is look at the time it took to negotiate the British Exit Treaty which established their relationship with the EU after Leave, and this was a nation which started with regulatory norms entirelly aligned with the EU ones and wanted to be free to set their own norms on some domains, so a much simpler situation than trying to come up with a semi-convergence standard for countries following completelly different norms which aren’t trying to fully converge with EU norms to become EU members (the latter being a process that usually takes more than a decade, by the way).
So far all we have is the kind of rosy and incredibly vague talkie-talkie from a particularly incompetent salesman-type on the EU side, well before the “technical” people even just start looking into how to actually do it.
There being true will amongst the EU countries for this (which I believe there is: in the various countries here I lived in, the perception of Canadians is very positive), I suspect this “EU Member Association” from von der Leyen will in practice just be a fancy name for broad trade treaty on Products, rather than something akin to the EEA association.
Doesn’t mean that Canada and the EU can’t further converge and the thing turn into much more in the mid and long term, though, just don’t expect this talkie-talkie to yield anything genuinelly significative (rather than just loud politician proclamations about something which in practice is nothing special) in a year or two.
Everyone thinking this leads to freedom of movement well be very disappointed.
Look, alert(canada) is 3400kms away from stockholm and 4100kms away from most larger canadian cities. Canada has a border with france and its right next to greenland, a place thats already european even though its technically not in europe. They speak european languages, and the list could go on.
Dude I can’t wait to move to the French motherland 😎
As an American:
I would like to see our dollar pinned to the EU, I know we are an exporter and that is not a good idea to have a stronger currency but if we can do that the world will move away from the US dollar even faster.
Pinned while CAD and Euro are relatively close… Not after the Great Drone Wars when 1 CAD = 47 Euro and the
former USAGreat Wasteland is ruled by the Guzzoline Gangs.The USA invaded Venezuela to prevent them from doing oil deals with China in Yen which would challenge the USD as the defacto currency for oil trade.
So we can also further your objective just by turning away from fossil fuels.
Yen = Japanese currency
Yuan = Chinese currency (aka renminbi)
We should be electrifying as many things as we. It costs less to run and the electricity supply is more reliable than gas or diesel.
The world will still need oil for durable plastics until that is replaced too.
I like the idea of turning away from dino juice, but it would take a lot to actually get people to do it.
Or sell oil to China in Yen
or sell Yen to oil in China
Yes this is better
There are indigenous people across Mexico, Canada and the U.S who might have their inter relationships further torn apart by this.
Canadian indigenous peoples have already spent the last 400 years having to capitulate to the whims of Europeans. They might not be interested in this type of relationship with the EU.
Cool then they can bow out and not sell anything to Europe not take any money Canada makes from this.
A very crucial thing to consider. Currently, righteous Canadian nationalism has led most Canadians to give up the act of caring about indigenous sovereignty or anti colonialism (this Lemmy community is a great example of that). They know the US is “worse,” so they feel justified in doing whatever imperialism Canada has always done but now it’s for a “good” reason.
It’s genuinely disgusting.
No it is when stuff gets hard like it is now people stop caring about others and their care sphere shrinks to things that effect them and theirs. Always happens and is nothing new.
Precisely.
I was thinking that this might force Canada to meaningfully implement and abide by the UNDRIP.
Why would it do that before anything having to do with mining?
Because of political pressure from Europe I guess, idk.
Didn’t check?
Mate, I commented something I was thinking about. Cut me some slack
“mate?” People who promote ecological destruction and genocide don’t get slack for ignorance. Go talk about fucking tech gadget features and your favourite video game or whatever then, this is a serious topic.
Nobody knows yet what that actually means, at least not publicly, and we’re still hearing from Canada’s representative that he doesn’t know what it means. So, what is there to be excited about? We already have free trade with the EU. We obviously have good diplomatic relations. What is being added on? Until we actually know details, I’m not excited about anything here, because I don’t know what it is.
This is simply a public announcement from both sides to deepen cooperation on trade, defense and likely other areas as research etc. Not more, not less.
There is a lot that the EU and Canada can cooperate. Canada and the EU have also a lot of room to intensify strategic cooperation on resources, arms etc. I would assume that we see more concrete joining of forces on various initiatives as we go in the future. Right now there was for example Canada joining the EU’s SAFE program, which is the EU’s defense capabilities and arms procurement program.
Just in time to institute age controls on social media and identify all accounts, everything said or looked at online, to make secret social scores to be used against their citizens!
Get your fucking politicians under control europe, or you will be the ones under control.
Well they haven’t managed to pass it yet, but not like your politicians aren’t trying:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Protecting_Young_Persons_from_Exposure_to_Pornography_Act
Europe trusts government more and North America trusts corporations more.
Exactly.
We’re going to end up living with all the EU’s limitations and zero of their individual benefits.
Fuck yeah
Open a better path to dual citizenship with EU nations pls.
Trump tantrum incoming in 3….2….
If Canada can get some of the consumer rights that Europeans enjoy I’d be for this in a heartbeat.
If Canada wants any kind of integration with the EU Single Market it will indeed have to follow regulatory norms for those products or services which are the same or even stricter than EU norms, which themselves are far stricter than US norms.
Further, those products when imported into Canada will also have to follow those norms so only American products following those norms can be imported into Canada.
So if there is genuine will in the Canadian political circles to integrated with the EU Single Markets, at least when it comes to product safety (not just directly but also indirectly, for example how not allowing bleeched chicken forces better conditions for raising them, which in turn means that amongst other things there is a lower incidence of things like Salmonella in the EU than the US) things will naturally get better from consumers in Canada.
That said, this is Regulatory uniformization. For consumer rights specifically, I think uniformization only happens with EU membership, which would me that for example things like minimum warranty durations per product-class from Canadians wouldn’t actually converge with EU-wide ones “merelly” by Canada becoming part or wholly integrated with the EU Single Market.
And have America invade us for threatening their corporations profit margins /s
I would love this but I don’t see it happening. fellows named Galen and Roger I doubt would be very thrilled.
We should invite Aldi and Lidl over
How do you not have Aldi? Even Australia has Aldi.
Fuck Aldi. I worked for them for several years, the cheap prices are at the expense of overworking their employees and keeping an absolute skeleton crew. In the one I worked at in the US, it was in the supervisor handbook that any employee that even joked about forming a union was to be fired on the spot. Legal protections vary state to state on that ofc, but I’m not interested in doxing myself further as to what state I worked in.
I’d only be interested in them being in Canada if the workers could unionize. They would still make a killing even if unionizing increased the costs of operation, their stuff would still be cheap compared to most grocers.
The closest comparison price and quality wise I’ve seen is FreshCo, but even then uhhh not really. The store brand items from Aldi were actually good or passable quality. The store brand items in Canada from any grocery franchise is shit imo.
I have never been to a US Aldi only the German and Austrian (Hofer) ones. And I have never worked for any. Their products are great and the prices reasonable. That’s what I am looking for.
The German and Austrian ones are much better from what I heard internally and I believe they are also unionized? Or just have more labour protections. But yeah the products are cheap and the quality was oftentimes acceptable or even better than name brand stuff. The cheap prices were the only reason I could eat well in the US. I love and hate them.
and I believe they are also unionized? Or just have more labour protections.
Well first off there are two Aldis in Germany, Aldi Süd (south, I think this is the one active in America and Austria) and Aldi Nord (north). Since they are different companies, they will have differences in how they treat labour organisations.
Genrally speaking they will both of course oppose them though, as companies are wont to do. For example two month ago Aldi Nord fired a member of the works council (something like a union rep, but independently elected by all employees), which is a rather… uncommon occurrence due to their legal protections. Their lawyer is optimistic.
The companies are unionised to a degree, for example the aforementioned work council had 4/19 members coming from Ver.di, a cross-occupational union for service workers of all kinds. It’s not uncommon for big employers like the Aldis to have several unions active among their staff, but all employees being union members is also rare.
Overall though it’s probably mostly the labour protections by law that you are seeing at work here. For example the possibility to create these work councils, which can have quite a lot of influence on company policy, is mandated by law. You have to announce a company wide meeting and then the quorum to elect a representative at that meeting is three(!) people, no matter the company size.
Expense of overworking their employees and keeping a skeleton crew
So the same as everywhere else?
Pretty much yep lol. To Aldi’s credit, I got USD$18/hr while everywhere else paid at most $11-13/hr. The working conditions sure as hell made you earn it though, I still have back pain from my manager pushing me to unload the food deliveries faster and faster. One whole food pallet of mixed foods, 7ft tall or more, needed to be done in 30 minutes on average, within 3 hours before opening. We would regularly get 6-7 pallets, and during peak sales I’d have to solo 10-13 pallets by myself.
Grocery workers need to unionize YESTERDAY. I wonder if a grocery store union could be an element in solving the overly greedy food profiteering. Call me a communist but food should only be sold exactly at how much it cost to grow and transport it to the store and a living wage for the farmers and employees. Go make profit somewhere else capitalist boy. Deeply interested in how those New York City owned grocery stores will play out. I hope they are successful.
NGL this was mostly just me ranting rather than making any worthwhile discussion lol
Only more reason to do it.
So the WSJ’s reports were accurate, even though some officials were downplaying it. “Associate membership” might be more of a rhetorical device to describe a relationship than to do with actual membership within the EU’s systems, but if it can lead to better mutual recognition of standards, and greater freedom of movement of people goods and capital between us and the bloc, I’m all for it.
I pointed out recently that Carney is a man of deliberate words. Some things were said after by him that made me think this was coming and what it really means
not looking to become a member of the European Union
That could mean it wouldn’t be happening, or it could mean that the EU is initiating, not us.
He didn’t say we would not accept a membership, he said we were not seeking one.
He said that he is seeking a special relationship with the EU. Well, if the EU wants Canada as a member in some capacity, and asks and Carney negotiates, then he got what he said he wanted, while the WSJ still telling the truth. Since “associate membership” is not yet a real thing, it could be left to Carney to decide.
Again… a man of deliberate words.
