Canada welcomes EU proposal to become 'associate member'

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Canada welcomes EU proposal to become 'associate member'

witweb

Comments (247)

philippemnoel
As a Canadian, I find this unbelievably good news. Canada, the EU, and other middle powers need to unite. Stronger together, while preserving what makes each country unique.
isodev
Good. The EU is an economic and political union so facilitating trade and movement between political allies seems only natural.
triceratops
Sort of a "meta" question about these announcements.I assume they already talk about them privately beforehand. Carney first made a speech seeking some kind of enhanced status within the EU. Then von der Leyen said basically "Yeah we'd love that". Now Carney says "Great, let's do it."It would be embarrassing if Carney's first speech had instead been met with silence.So how many steps ahead do they choreograph these announcements? Did Carney show a draft of his speech today to people in the EU last week? "This is where I'd like us to be at next week. What do you guys think?"Anyone who's worked in international diplomacy or UN-type institutions that would know this? I'm just interested in the mechanics of such an announcement.
_ink_
Man, I'd love if Canada became part of Schengen and had freedom of movement for workers as well.
HelloUsername
Related: "EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member' (bbc.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724141 863 comments
temporallobe
My understanding is that an EU member state has to physically be in Europe unless they are an “extension” of a state already in the EU. I get that it’s supposed to be an “associate” state but I’m fascinated by what kind of legal hoops they’re going to jump through to make this happen.They did make an exception for Cypress, so I suppose there’s some kind of precedent.
mattz56
That's unbelievable to be honest ! As european who live in Canada i have a weird feeling
WarmWash
Meanwhile, Alberta, where all of Canada's "energy security" is located, is holding a secession referendum on Oct 19.The chances of Canada getting everyone to go along with this are close to zero. (As are the chances of Alberta actually seceding).It's just political theater
jackling
> "work, study and live where they want on either side of the Atlantic"Will the Canadian job market improve or suffer here? Does anyone know of any research that will determine if this would be beneficial for Canadians? Naively, I think it'll be harder to compete with Europeans for jobs.
jorblumesea
EU is notoriously fractured and divided in the best of times, especially around membership. Importantly, many EU countries have not ratified CETA, and that was put in place in 2017.FT is a pro transatlanticism but has a somewhat negative take on all of thishttps://www.ft.com/content/2e2e0c1e-51d6-49e2-9f4a-6ef793908...
chaostheory
The irony in this was that Canada, led by Alberta, was leaning towards a break up that would have likely led to slowly merging with the US, until someone really smart, a very bright individual, threatened them militarily.
sajithdilshan
What’s going on with HN? This article from BBC is like the 4th time in front page in HN with everyone worshipping EU with support and adoration.And ever comment critical about this is being downvoted by bots. Since when did HN became a nonsensical propaganda machine for EU?
delichon
Reaction from the Canadian opposition leader: The Prime Minister can’t seem to get his story straight about the “associate membership,” “unique alliance,” or whatever else he is negotiating with the EU. Conservatives are clear: we support the decades-old free trade & NATO defence alliance with Europe. But no EU taxes, no EU laws, and no EU open-border immigration policies should be imposed on Canadians. Canada must be independent and sovereign. Period. https://x.com/PierrePoilievre/status/2100274078066036766
ratelimitsteve
Hey, so what do y'all think it felt like back in the 30s to watch the world split between a handful of really aggressive countries and everyone else? Specifically, what do y'all think it felt like to be a non-aggressive person living in one of the handful of really aggressive countries?
solox3
> US President Donald Trump earlier called the idea "laughable" and threatened "very serious tariffs" on Europe if he considered it a "hostile act".So if Canada tries to make friends with anyone other than the US, it's a hostile act?Makes it all the more obvious that USA is Canada's abusive partner, that they should have broken up with a long time ago.
close04
> US President Donald Trump earlier called the idea "laughable" and threatened "very serious tariffs" on Europe if he considered it a "hostile act".There's a lawsuit [1] on the way related to the Epstein files so this Canada-EU topic gives Trump the perfect opportunity to divert the attention.[1] https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2026/09/lawsuit-trump-do...
ck2
What's the best estimate for US to recover from non-stop levels of stupid?It's at least a decade but now I'm starting to think two decadesAnd the problem is since people have short memories there's going to be a Trump 2.0 doing a full speedrun back to destroying democracy as hard and as fast as possible, fueled by Heritage FoudationSo we may be recovering every decade at this pointI mean Bush plowed the economy into the ground plus stop-loss endless war and yet here we are again
mrbanks
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blueoranges
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emptyfile
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marginalia_nu
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earth-tattoo
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GetOot
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bsoqk
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flowerlad
Can the blue states of USA become associate members too? He has declared that the blue states are the "enemy from within" and may launch the military against us soon.https://www.npr.org/2025/09/30/nx-s1-5557232/hegseth-general...
fashg182
While I would welcome Canada as an associate EU member, one must be aware of the possibility that this is political theater in order to sell more Ukraine support to the Canadian public. Canada proposes to join EU funding for the Ukraine war, so both the EU and Canada follow literally Pete Hegseth's instructions from 2025 for burden sharing in NATO and finance the US proxy war:https://www.ft.com/content/9cd8cc79-e98a-449f-a903-609b034a5...So both the EU and Canada are compliant US vassals despite the talk.
hedora
In other, less covered news, Trump and Rubio are misusing their positions to loot Cuba:https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/sep/17/trump-marco-...They are currently targeting civilian populations there by weaponizing access to necessities. They have intentionally created multiple humanitarian crises, then rerouted food and energy imports through Florida companies for private benefit.This is a long way of asking: Can the US west coast become an associate EU member too? Here in California, the Sierra Nevada and deserts of the southwest are already 99% of the wall we’d need to protect our border from maga zealots.
Sol-
I'm sorry, but nothing is going to happen. Canada and the EU made up an imaginary category for good vibes and to market some likely very limited cooperation in arms development or maybe research programs. We already have CETA and I doubt any "associate membership" will be more consequential like that.In two years this will have fizzled out like any other marketing blitzes by the EU (remember Gaia-X?). I say this as a disillusioned EU citizen. This institution doesn't have any ambition left.
alpineman
According to the FT, Von der Leyen didn't really get the OK from member states before coming up with this. Let's see what happens in practice, the trade agreement from 2017 hasn't even been ratified yet.
pigpop
Is this some kind of astroturf campaign? It's like the 4th time this topic sourcing a BBC article has appeared on the first page in about as many days and the comments on it are all the same drab, short and repetitive expressions of support. This really doesn't seem like the kind of material that normally interests HN users.
petermcneeley
Shacked to a corpse! Europe where is your NVIDIA, Google, Apple, Microsoft, Facebook, OpenAI, SpaceX ... You have high power cost, high electric cost, high taxes; What fertile soil!
jmatthews
Without commenting on the EU, particularly, I would be concerned if I were a Canadian about Carney's commitment to globalism when the degenerate cases have become so common.It's a weird two-front war where people tend to answer the social question and ignore the economic one, but the economic question has not done any favors to the EU or the US for that matter