EU Floats Canada Becoming the Bloc's First 'Associate Member'

helsinkiandrew 82 points 170 comments September 16, 2026
www.bloomberg.com · View on Hacker News

Discussion Highlights (8 comments)

drgo

Thanks Trump

jjgreen

Bienvenue aux canucks

Chance-Device

Stranger than fiction.

bawolff

Canadian government seems to be denying this.

nutjob2

Between the US and China, the EU is the future, but they need to federalize then leverage that to implement a top notch military and economy. Carney can see this and wants a piece of the action. The question is if the EU can escape its parochial myopia and see it. Hopefully Russia will do something even stupider and precipitate the existential crisis that the EU desperately needs to get off its ass.

rapnie

The other day in a Dutch geopolitics podcast (Boekestijn en de Wijk) it was mentioned that if there's one country that could be added to the EU "at the stroke of a pen", it would be Canada. In terms of state of the democracy, shared values, etc. And I agree with that perspective. But at the same time I thought that if there's one way to get into conflict with the current US administration - who declared EU their only adversary in the US National Security Plan - this is it. It would be like a mirror image of Russia feeling encroached by NATO, but then in the Western hemisphere. And perhaps a red cloth invitation to the frothing bull(ies) of the Trump administration to invade their neighbor.

ocd

As stated by Carney, this is not exactly true, but something like this has been expected. From a legal and sovereignty standpoint, EU membership of any kind does not make sense. A novel bloc of nations centered around military and economic cooperation that includes the EU and Canada however, does.

gizajob

Would it not make sense to perhaps invite the UK to be an associate member first? We’re right on the doorstep.

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