Yes, Canada has a legal path to E.U. membership – but would it want this?
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I didn’t have this on my bingo card when the year started, but hey, I’m all for it. Come join us, be one of us. We are all friends, except Hungary. They should just throw their government out.
Putin and Trump want to split the EU and destroy our unity. Let’s make it bigger and better than they ever expected.
I’m in. I’ll miss the Loonie, but Europe’s looking pretty good these days.
Using the euro is optional! Many countries kept their own currency.
Are there any non-founding-member countries that kept their own currency?
I believe it’s mandatory for all new members.
Yes, it is. You can delay it indefinitely, though, and Romania is still on the leu. Other members have blocked them from making the switch, even.
Same. I wouldn’t mind switching to the Euro, but our coins are really cool and nostalgic for me. It would be nice if there were a way to keep them.
UK did exactly that. They never swapped their pound with euro. I’m all for it!
They were a founding member and got a special carve-out.
Theoretically, there’s nothing stopping any new country from joining getting a carve-out. You just need everyone to agree to it. And tbh, getting them to agree to let Canada continue using the Canadian Dollar is probably a much smaller ask than getting them to let a North American country into the European Union.
Carve-outs of the rules have way more practical implications than just making the EU name slightly ironic, though. Asking for both just seems rude to me, but I could be wrong.
I mean, you get to put whatever on the reverse of the coins.
Well that’s cool, then. I don’t know anything about EU process or regulations.
The denominations are fixed: 0.01, 0.02, 0.05, 0.10, 0.20, 0.50, 1 and 2 for coins, 5, 10, 20, 50, 100, 200 and 500 for bills (although I’ve read the 200 and 500 had ceased production).
Every country can mint coins with bespoke faces, even limites editions, for commemorations and special events. Spain uses the Sagrada Familia for their lower denomination coins and the king’s image for higher, Greece reproduced an ancient dracma in their 1€ coin, Italy as used the Vitruvian Man, France has the Republic in their coins, etc. Enough room for each country to express their roots and values.
That’s interesting, thank you. I have another question, more for curiosity than anything else: Canada got rid of its 0.01 coin – if we became part of the EU, would we have to bring that back?
The real thing I’d dread is that Euros are heavy as fuck. You have too much change in like half or less the time it takes here.
That’s true, it seems like the loonie is 6.27g and the 1 Euro coin is 7.5g.
That’s an increase of about 19.6% so that would kind of suck. The 2 Euro coin is heavier than the toonie by an even larger margin. Not to mention that we would also have to get rid of quarters and introduce 2 more coins: 0.20 and 0.02.
Assuming Canada would switch to the Euro, yes. You’re referring to Canada also doing something to “block” the scummy x.99 prices, hence eliminating the 0,01 coin, right?
No, we got rid of the $0.01 (called a cent) because it was costing too much money to mint. I think it cost $0.03 to make $0.01, so we just stopped making them in 2013.
And a fun thing to do is to pick through your coins in your pocket and see the designs and where they’re from. I currently live in Italy and we have a lot of Italian designs, of course, but also from all over. I hope one of yours will just have a maple leaf on it.
I’m hoping that, if this all does come to pass, we can put a loon on our 1 Euro coin and a polar bear on the 2 Euro coin. That’s currently our tradition and it would be nice to continue it. Of course, a maple leaf is already on all of our coins so it stands to reason that that would also continue.
All that to say: if we were to join, you would more than likely get your wish. :3
Norweigians are just being weird because of their oil riches. They fear (perhaps legitimately) that we’ll tax those off of them.
The EU requires unanimity among its existing members in order to add a new member. It’s not impossible, but getting Orban to agree to it is, I think, a much bigger stumbling block than the article implies. Any “concessions” Orban demands to accept Canada would themselves have to be unanimously agreed to by existing members.
We should just create EU 2.0 without them, with proper rules to handle that bullshit in the future, and… I don’t know, Blackjack maybe.
Not an expert on this, but if Orban is really stubborn about it - and flaunts EU rules generally - couldn’t the suspension clause be used on Hungary? If I’m understanding it right, once voting rights are suspended, they’d no longer have a say in objecting to Canada’s accession during the duration of the suspension.
I have no clue, but I hope they figure it out soon. This is extremely annoying.
It already probably would have been for all the other nefarious shit they do, except they’ve had a sympathetic fashy government somewhere else in the EU to block it. It was Poland, now it’s IIRC Slovakia.
With blackjack and hookers
With blackjack and Canadian hookers
They are all bearded lumberjacks.
Forgot to add this: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pfRdur8GLBM
I mean, we’re already talking about a NATO 2.0, aren’t we?
Of course, that’s their decision to ultimately make.
Orban has to vote for Canada. Why? His regime will be over in 14 days if he does not get the EU money. Orban’s biggest rival is in first place according to the latest polls. If he wants to be re-elected, he cannot sabotage EU policy.
Can the EU expel member states?
My understanding is no - but a long term suspension might be better anyways, since the effect seems to be that the member state is still forced to comply with EU rules without getting any of the benefits like voting.
That being said, I wonder if they could suspend Hungary, then have the rest vote and approve an amendment to allow expulsion - which would pass unamiously since Hungary can’t vote against it as it’s suspended, and then they expel Hungary under the new amendment…?
It may not be an issue anymore (I don’t recall hearing about it in a while, but I’m not sure how long), but it used to be the case that there were two countries that were often regarded as EU troublemakers, and by working together, even though they didn’t agree much of the time, they could veto any attempts to undermine each other. I think the other troublemaker was Poland, and I think it may have been before their last election, but that’s a lot of unsurity.
Suspension, fwiw, requires unanimity apart from the country in question, so one single dissenter can prevent it.
Thanks so much. Food for thought. Latent consequences to be searched out and explored.
The EU requires unanimity among its existing members
Wow, that’s a rule that doesn’t scale well. Especially since apparently expelling a country requires unanimity too.
I want all of the consumer protections EU citizens get like being able to side load apps on iPhones etc.
Some privacy laws would be nice, eh?
At the very least, joining with their economic standards is a path we should move towards.
Absolutely. This would be such a boon to both Canada and the EU
Yeah let’s do it
Sure thing! I hope they drag their old masters in the UK along with them when they arrive. This will stretch the meaning of “Europe” a tad though.
If Turkey can join Canada certainly can
At least part of turkey is on the European continent, or sub confident if you prefer.
French Guiana is in South America yet is part of the EU. Besides, Canada is a former European colony and technically is still run by a European monarch.
But all that aside, both the EU and Canada are stronger together. Any justification needed to make people accept that fact should be used.
French Guiana is part of France. France is part of the EU. There’s a little bit of a difference.
Joining the EU would be a massive undertaking that would have pretty big ramifications for our economy. I imagine a lot of companies would flee to the US to avoid all the rules that come with the EU, and that would decimate our economy sadly.
While I think it would be good in the long term, we’ll have to see what happens with the Orange Fuckhead. If the US descends into a full fascist dictatorship (which let’s be honest, it’s well on its way) then it would be prudent to start the process. If Orange Fuckhead or his cronies don’t get a third term, maybe our relationship can be healed with the US and we can return to normalcy. Hard to say.
I don’t think its worth trying to repair the US relationship until they demonstrate the ability to go through at least a few sane presidents. Even if they manage to rid themselves of Trump and seem to be returning to sanity, they will probably just elect another lunatic again.
Why would we want to return to a normal where one guy can wreck our economy. Not to mention, the US will never be the same again. Why the fuck would we want to lash ourselves to an empire that is dying in real time?
You misinterpreted. I don’t think we should leash ourselves and be dependent on the US. But we should aim to trade and be friendly with our land bordering countries as that benefits both countries. Obviously we shouldn’t be friendly with them if their values don’t align with us.
We also need to look inwards and root out the fascists that live among us. There are many traitors. At least 10% of the population are traitors and are sympathetic to the terrorist united states.
OK, I don’t disagree with those points.
The EU would be a massive undertaking, but it removes a vulnerability we have, which is our unfortunate dependence on the United States, which quite frankly, may not exist next year, let alone 10 years from now. Where I disagree is on the need to be friendly. We need not be friendly if they are hostile. We don’t need to be hostile in return, but we shouldn’t endeavour to act like we have in the past. At this point in time, they are a hostile nation engaged in active sabotage against us.
I’m also not worried about companies fleeing to the US. Firstly, I believe that unless they fix their shit right now, there will not be a US in the near future. Business hates uncertainty, and the stock markets are showing that. The EU has many business that HQ in the EU even under their “stifling” regulations. That would continue to be true for many Canadian businesses especially when those markets open up entirely to them, without the worry of currency imbalance affecting their ability to sell.
I don’t know if full membership is reasonable. Full membership would mean complying with all EU standards, those standards include electrical standards, and Canadian and European electrical standards are completely different. They run on 240V at 50Hz and Canada runs on 120V at 60Hz.
But, a closer alignment would be a great idea. Make it easier for workers to move between the EU and Canada. Harmonize some laws (for example, bring EU privacy and data protection laws to Canada). Require Canada to have more efficient vehicles and appliances.
Surely those standards are occasionally amended to include historic exceptions.
Yep
I don’t think this is currently possible under the current treaties of the EU. At the very least, there is contention about whether it would be possible. It’s also not really an overnight kind of situation. At the very least, closer ties with the EU are definitely good for the country.
I’m not in favor of this.
We don’t need more super-national institution telling us what to do. I’m on board for good relations and for taking ideas from them, but we need to stop giving power to distant institutions that aren’t truly invested in our success.
Yes
