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  • Hacker News
  • Man, I'd love if Canada became part of Schengen and had freedom of movement for workers as well.
    by _ink_
  • 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.

    by temporallobe
  • Good. The EU is an economic and political union so facilitating trade and movement between political allies seems only natural.
    by isodev
  • 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 this

    https://www.ft.com/content/2e2e0c1e-51d6-49e2-9f4a-6ef793908...

    by jorblumesea
  • 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.
    by chaostheory
  • Related: "EU chief opens door for Canada to become 'associate member' (bbc.com)" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49724141 863 comments
    by HelloUsername
  • It's all over the news, but nobody really knows what an 'associate member' of the EU is
    by attendant3446
  • 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.

    by triceratops

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