Thread

1. neom · 1789557380 · 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 · 1789557897 · 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 · 1789559328 · 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 · 1789560403 · 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 · 1789565708 · 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 · 1789566863 · 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. nutjob2 · 1789648270 · focus · HN ↗

                     > And that 50% who voted No was more people than even voted in the EU elections (to elect MEPs) before that.

                     This is ignorance or just plain bad faith. MEPs are not the main democratic mechanism of the EU, it's the national governments. This is on purpose, so that both national democracy and sovereignty can be maintained.

                     This is the typical of EU misinformation spouted by people who have a problem with the EU. Of course people can dislike the EU all they want, but people who constantly rail against it, with little or no basis in fact, I'll never know. It's not about the EU, it's some sort of bitter obsession or ideological idiocy. Somehow the EU means much more to them than they claim, otherwise they wouldn't spend so much energy complaining about it.

                     1. gizajob · 1789649075 · focus · HN ↗

                        But I was a supporter of the EU who noticed this. Like I comment elsewhere, the EU is like Teflon and resistant to critique - when there is an issue or a defect we get comments like yours “yes yes but this isn’t the actual process, that is a governmental/national/commission/parliament issue.”

                        It’s not misinformation - it’s a very basic fact about the democratic mechanism we had for electing who represents us in the EU parliament which makes and votes on our laws. The opacity of this process and the general lack of enfranchisement in it is a major flaw but one that the EU was content with, because a simulation of a democratic process is good enough, better even, because it avoids the scrutiny and can be defended by people like you. It’s a basic fact that people did get off their arses and vote to leave in greater numbers than even bothered to be enfranchised in the elections for MEPs. You don’t have to bleat about it or invoke ignorance or bad faith because all you show up is your own bad faith to a fairly basic fact.

Unofficial Hacker News client; not affiliated with Y Combinator.