Canada is the first non-EU country to gain access.
Carney has said he intends to diversify Canada’s procurement and enhance the country’s relationship with the EU. He has previously said that no more will over 70 cents of every dollar of Canadian military capital spending go to the U.S.
How do people feel about this seeing as it may mean less of EU money being spent in the EU?
That’s an easy problem to solve, let Canada join the EU too, then your money will still be spent in the EU.
I mean, it’s called European Union. Canada is kinda not in Europe.
I’m all for getting all the trade (and other) agreements we can, though.
Sure, but a name is just a name, they still work just fine even when they only reflect their origins and don’t reflect the current reality anymore. NATO’s already got a handful of members that are a stretch to consider under anything but the broadest definition of “North Atlantic”. Tim Horton’s used to be about a hockey player, now it’s just, passable coffee and shitty food. Sometimes they don’t even reflect the origins either. The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea hasn’t ever been very Democratic, has it?
Even if they really are attached to the limitations self-imposed by the name, I feel like they need to consider whether Europe is strictly just a place or can it also be a state of mind? Alternately, we can just surrender to Denmark and become a territorial extension of Greenland (which isn’t even green!). It’s fine either way.
I promise I’m only being like 65% tongue-in-cheek.
In a strictly economics/geopolitical view: It’s a loan program, so long term it is net positive on interest alone. If the money is used to procure eu-made equipment, as is implied, it will bring manufacturing to EU and finance European R&D as well (where not säl of it will be used in only military applications) Short term it might affect the speed of rearmament which would be bad in an armed conflict. On the other hand, a bigger market will allow bigger investments, which might add production capacity sooner, so it might not add as much time as feared.
In short, it seems to achieve what the tariffs what touted to accomplish without all the drama and negatives associated with tariffs.
Morally it depends on your opinion of a states right to defend itself.
Thank you for the response! I’m not sure of the reason for the negative reaction to the question, but I was curious to see whether time had shifted opinion on non-EU arms manufacturers being allowed to benefit from the fund seeing as the prevailing sentiment some months ago seemed to be that it was a good thing that non-EU manufacturers were excluded.
The negative reactions might be because your wording, to me, is a bit flame batey, as if this is a given negative.
As for non-EU manufacturer being able to invest in production equipment Europe might need if push come to shove on places not easily destroyed by the assumed enemy producing European designs? And in the process incentivise other countries to buy non-american equipment?
If a good chunk of the global military complex seems about to change supplier, I’d bet big on getting to be picked as the supplier of choice!
Fair enough; not my intention with the wording - I’m also generally in favour.
