A lot of this is about resource access, and that can't be magically conjured. You can have all the industry and business you want to put on paper, but this is a tangible concern for Europe where they require these things from a stable and trusted nation with a similar regulatory and political environment.

This trade matter is likely going to require a new type of agreement that has some special privileges not extended in any other case for both parties.

It's actually going to raise questions as to why the EU are A-OK with this now when a possible interpretation of associate membership is it's what Cameron was trying to negotiate the UK into when complete inflexibility on the EU side triggered the Brexit referendum.

All depends on what an associate member is of course.

> To enable free movement of goods and services the EU insists that the goods and services are produced in an identical regulatory environment.

Doesn't seem to be true anymore, at least in every case. See the EU-Mercosur agreement for one recent exception to this, the goods we're now importing from South America don't have the same regulatory environment by far, to many of our local farmers.

A) Would never happen.

B) If it did happen, the US would just say “give us the same deal or you get cut off” and Europe would capitulate immediately.

Also, being a European Broadcasting Union (EBU) "Associate Member" is the name for the mechanism that allowed Australia, Canada and other countries to be admitted into Eurovision.

If you've been around the ESC scene, you know there's a lot of embassy involvement (parties in embassies are a thing), the scene is catnip for those interested in politics, the politically active, and to some extent politicians. Eurovision is also one mechanism for discussions of economic development. Hosting the contest is usually an excuse for upgrades to public infrastructure.

And there's Eurovision Asia starting in November. South Korea is an Associate Member of the EBU, for example.

https://www.ebu.ch/news/2026/03/bangkok-to-host-first-ever-e...

Doubtful, Eurovision only accepts countries actively participating in extermination/genocide campaigns.

Unless genocidal regimes are excluded, I wouldn't bother.

Australia has managed a 2nd and a 4th from 11 entrants. Our voting participation is quite low though, as the voting windows are usually at awkward AEST times and the main Australian broadcast of the contest is delayed until our primetime.

No - it means that Charles III is an independent monarch for two separate nations.

The monarchy is 99% ceremonial in Canada but it's important to note that the Canadian Crown isn't the UK Crown... Canada is not a dependent of the UK in anyway, simply the person that wears the Crowns is the same person.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Monarchy_of_Canada

>the Crown has had both a shared and a separate character: the sovereign's role as monarch of Canada has been distinct from their position as monarch of any other realm,[n 4][16][65][66][67] including the United Kingdom.[n 6][69][70][71][72] Only Canadian federal ministers of the Crown may advise the sovereign on any and all matters of the Canadian state,[n 7][70][73][74][75][76][77] of which the sovereign, when not in Canada, is kept abreast by weekly communications with the federal viceroy.[78] The monarchy thus ceased to be an exclusively British institution and, in Canada, became a Canadian,[40][79][80][81] or "domesticated",[82] establishment, though it is still often denoted as "British" in both legal and common language,[40] for reasons historical, political, and of convenience.

No, it’s like Elon. He happens to be CEO of multiple companies but they are separate and independent companies (for now).

Let me introduce you to the Commonwealth of Nations

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commonwealth_of_Nations

These countries choose voluntarily to hold ties with the UK, and each other, and some accept the UK's monarch as nominal head of state, but don't be mistaken; they are all fully independent countries. Some are republics, some are kingdoms with their own monarch. They value each other's friendship, shared values and heritage, but they're not beholden to the UK or each other.

No. We have our own monarch who happens to be the same human is all

No. He is separately the monarch of the UK and Canada. You could just as well argue that the UK is dependent on Canada for that reason.

No, he’s just the monarch of two different countries simultaneously.

EEA you have to follow rules but get no say in said rules.

For one this seems related to EU the umbrella organization, not Europe the continent, while I suppose the European Economic Area might be geographically limited to Europe the continent. Maybe something like the European Neighbourhood Policy (ENP) might be more applicative here.

I think free movement of people doesn’t imply Schengen Zone style borders - I thought this was mostly an economic lever that people can move and work in another country by default, not a human right where a country cannot exclude chosen people (known criminals, etc) and track all crossings. I think of it as another country giving me a visa is opt-out for that country, not opt-in.

The CE rules are relatively sane and followed commonly right? At least I see a lot of CE-stamped goods in Australia… so I always assumed that was the case.

Not all of the EU is in schengen, but we do have freedom of movement. Ireland for example is not in Schengen and never will be because of our travel arrangements with the UK.

> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?

It might not be as strict anymore, as the EU-Mercosur Agreement seemingly ended up relaxing a bit on the strict norms and regulations. Many farmers were/are protesting this agreement exactly because the farmers in South America would compete against local farmers who are more strictly regulated.

So, seems we're a bit flexible on that front, when push comes to shove :)

It's not an insurmountable problem if they don't have compatibility on standards

It'll just take time to reach an agreement both sides can accept and it's in some ways simpler than something like the EU-Mercosur agreement since one "side" is a unified country rather that been two trading bloc's negotiating.

It's fascinating watching the world re-align so quickly (by diplomatic/negotiation standards).

> Does Canada's agricultural output follow EU's (quite strict) norms?

Which output specifically? To take one example, the Dijon mustard coming out of France is mostly from Canadian mustard seeds:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dijon_mustard#2022_shortage_in...

This was one of the stupid things that was touted as a benefit of not being in the EU during brexit.

That we'd still have to comply with EU rules if we wanted to trade with them, but we wouldn't have any vote in those rules

> > Common defense was already agreed anyhow. > > Where and how?

NATO presumably

> Eurovision is also stupid. Why is Israel part of it? That makes zero sense, even way aside from what war criminal Netanyahu is doing - it's not a european country. Something is wrong with the word EU. It constantly seeks to expand. So that is now a misnomer.

Eligibility to compete is not based on country, but my membership to the European Braodcasting Union of which Israel is a member, and Australian SBS is an associate member and was allowed to compete as a special case.

Don't bring Eurovision into it. Learn to lighten up and have some fun instead.

Israel's public broadcaster is a long time member of the European Broadcasting Union, which has nothing to do with EU, and honestly not all that much to do with Europe either. EBU organizes Eurovision. Why Israel's public broadcaster wanted to be part of EBU I don't know, cultural identification with Europe I guess? You'd have to ask them.

But either way that's not the scandal. The scandal is that Russia's broadcaster got kicked out for Russia doing bad things (fair enough) but Israel's was kept in despite their government doing even worse things.

UK does not pay.

The EU is likely to develop a military at some point and has some defence cooperation. if you do not trust the US, that means you cannot rely on NATO, which means you need some alternative.

> Right now it seems to me that e. g. Carney, and Leyen, use this more as promo-tour.

I agree. It might be meant as a threat to influence US policy.

I have such fatigue from listening to the rhetoric and whining from US farmers when enough of their goods are dangerous for consumers and illegal in Canada and the EU.

It's all bad faith from the US trying to run over any market they don't control so they can weaponize control over food supply of another nation later.

PPWR is an obvious one. Its such a dysfunctional law that they actually told people to ignore it.

One I have actually dealt with was VATMOSS. Especially when first introduced it had very low ceilings for registration and actually deterred small businesses from trading across borders.

I also think GDPR is too strict for small businesses and non-profits and not strict enough to deal with big businesses that trade data.

Welcome to Canada where the regulations are in fact provincial.

Canadian provinces have a harder time trading with each other than countries in the EU, although thanks to the sales tax and package transit changes the EU is becoming competitive in this area.

...Those cookie banner things for a start!! heh. ;)

Mostly just wouldn't really work because Ottawa would have to somehow represent the provinces to the EU and the provinces and Ottawa don't work together in a way that would be compatible, I don't think anyone in Canada would want to change how Ottawa works with them. We may also end up in the same position again as we have with the Americans, nobody but us likes our supply management system[1]. GDPR is also something I think Canadians would struggle to get behind, our PIPEDA framework is quite good and I think most folks approve of it (except Quebec, who have their own framework). Taking the Euro would be a problem, etc etc, I think I could probably build quite a big list. btw, I respect the EU regulation, and that Europeans quite like it, I was just saying I don't think it would be practical for us to re-work the whole country to accommodate them, that's all.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dairy_and_poultry_supply_manag...

Exactly. The EU has plenty of faults, but I don't see anything better. Improving on the EU is better than abandoning it.

I am British, pro-Brexit, and still prefer France to the US as a neighbour. I would have always said that - its not just Trump.

And yet NordVPN and Signal both continue to work in Australia (I don't know who/what Windscribe are), so all other things aside, I suspect this is a hollow threat.

This is only part of the question though, the other question is is it actually good for the EU to continue growing and becoming more heterogenous indefinitely, which to me isn't at all clear.

You could make a good case that the EU is still trying to deal with issues from the 2004 expansion for example. Doesn't mean it was a bad idea, but it's not cost free

Just a few days ago, Iceland disagreed.