‹ BackHN Continuity

Thread

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

693 points · 905 comments · hackernj

  1. neom · · focus · HN ↗
    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. :)
    1. FabCH · · focus · HN ↗
      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."

      1. klelatti · · focus · HN ↗
        > 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.

        1. fidotron · · focus · HN ↗
          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.

          1. jen20 · · focus · HN ↗
            That is a rather fantastical and revisionist version of why the Brexit referendum was called - which had more to do with a misguided attempt to put the crazy wing of the Conservative Party to bed rather than anything to do with the EU, where the UK had the best deal imaginable already.
            1. gizajob · · focus · HN ↗
              Nevertheless when put to British voters 50% of them decided that best possible deal still wasn’t in their interests. And that 50% who voted No was more people than even voted in the EU elections (to elect MEPs) before that. So the EU was very much fine with their democratic process seeming like an irrelevance, while at the same time the Brexit vote was actually an example of a democratic process working as it should do. One can argue about craziness or otherwise, but there were at least 17 million crazies at the time and if there was a referendum to rejoin the EU would likely be another 17 million crazies voting no again.
              1. hardbass · · focus · HN ↗
                Of course not. Just by age range, I assume a lot of Brexit voters would have dead and younger voters are probably more EU supportive.
Open on Hacker News to reply ↗

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.