I doubt you get that. We in EFTA will fight it and protect our interests. That is our Norwegian-Swiss-Icelandic plan anway
To be honest, no one seems to understand what Von der Leyen means with associate member. Apparantly, she made up that on her own without conferring with EU capitals, at least according to Norwegian media. On one hand, she says Canada cannot become a member since it is not European, on another hand she pulls the term “associate member” out of her hat, and everyone wonders what she thinks that means (aka rights and obligations visa vi EFTA and EU).
But she cannot just invent EFTA-like status for Canada, which we EFTA states spent many years in grueling and difficult negotiations with the EU to get in place. So no one knows what she means (if you do, please enlighten me)
Do we need a version of that gif with Norway with the angry spurned look while an EU looks at a hot Canada walking by?
No one here really knows what it means, and that includes people in Carney’s PMO. Sounds good, though.
There are some elements that probably won’t be too hard to achieve around which there is significant excitement - the Erasmus program being an obvious example.
Yeah, Erasmus is easy. More importantly, Defence procurement also highly possible, and security in general is unproblematic.
But Canada has stated that “it will not he a rules taker” (like Norway), which again will mean that a lot of (economic as well as integration) stuff will be barred for it, at least initially. Because Canada is not getting our rights without paying in, obviously. And Canada doesn’t want to do that, which meas what it means.
Anyway, I think everyone in Europe wants Canada closer and some how integrate it. But it is complicated. Certain deals have been negotiated for 3 years, give and take. And European states will not voluteer for massive economic damage and injustice without compensation just to get Canada in (and VLD has not cleared anything with capitals).
Ironically, if the EU had been a proper political union, instead of individual member states serving their national interests above all as members of a trade cartel ++; all of this would be likely easier.
There is a malaise in the West that centers around creature comforts and milking privilege. The fringe festival that is disenfranchisement is the comforting elevator music for the claustrophobic individuals afraid of heights but want elevation to escape the plebs.
p.s. - frustration seems to be getting the better of me, and it is only end of business Monday…