The relationships between Canada and the USA are under serious pressure – and there are some commentators who offer an unlikely – if not impossible – solution.
What if Canada joined the European Union?
Before US President Donald Trump Canadians threatened with “economic violence”, if they didn’t want to become a “51st state”, Stanley Pignal, a columnist with The economistPresent hovered the idea the national change teams.
“As it turns out,” he wrote, “both Europe and Canada could be on the market for improved alliances.”
Pignals Column in early January followed a small excitement of online excitement: A former spokesman for the Canadian embassy in Paris the idea supported the ideaHow it did A head of the British Pro-EU movement. Even A former German Foreign Minister seemed to jump on board.
“Joke, rant, real proposal? It is difficult to say”, ” Read a column In the Montreal Daily La Presse. “(But) With an American president who is now hostile to Canada, approaching Europe would be anything but pointless.”
But could it really happen?
Is the EU possible?
Article 49 The contract for the European Union opens up membership in “every European state, which is to promote human bills, freedom, democracy, equality, the rule of law and the respect for human rights, including the rights of people who belong to minorities, to promote. “
What it doesn’t do is to define Europeans.
“What a European country is, remains the political decision -making,” said Dimitrios Argyroulis, researcher at the Institute for European Studies at the Université Libre de Bruxellen in Belgium.
A country outside of Europe has only tried to join. 1987 ,, Morocco was rejected on the basis of the fact that it was not a “European country”.
But Canada may be different. In his column, Pignal is based on the idea that Canadians are “” honorary Europeans “due to their” common values ” – something Both governments have often emphasized.
Canadians, they say, will generally support weapons control, oppose the death penalty and reset a strong welfare state that regulates the free market – similar to the Europeans.
Canadian political and legal institutions are also modeled, and European precedent in which European precedents are also modeled More than half of the Canadians identify themselves as European in the descent.
There could also be some advantages for both sides to a closer union. As Pignal suggests, Canada could offer the EU access to huge reserves of strategic resources on the continent much less often, e.g. B. minerals and fossil fuels.
Canada could now benefit from access to the large and qualified labor market in Europe – and reduce dependence on the USA and its volatile politics.
“Ottawa has to prepare for a world in which Washington is less reliable,” said Teona Lavrelashvili, a host frunder in the Martens Center, an EU thinking factory in Brussels. “Strengthening engagement with Europe … is not only strategic, but also essential.”
Could it actually happen?
So it is legally possible and even has some upsides – but is it actually likely?
Don’t keep your breath.
“It won’t happen,” said Steven Blockmans, Senior Fellow in the Center for European Studies in Brussels.
The European Union already has A long waiting list: 10 candidates, including some, such as Bosnia-Herzegovina who have been waiting for decades.
“Think of the look,” said Maria Garcia, a high -ranking lecturer in politics at the University of Bath in England. “If you have very delayed candidates … Can you really open them for countries outside of it with these eastern countries that are actually in Europe?”
A recently carried out survey Only 38 percent of the EU resident presented more members from the Martens Center – and more than 80 percent said they should come from Europe.
Since Europe adds more members, it will also be more difficult to find an agreement about who should be admitted. These decisions – along with guidelines on sensitive topics such as security and immigration – are made by consensus.
“It is difficult for them to keep it as it is,” said Ruben Zaiotti, director of the Excellence Center for Jean Monnet European Union at Dalhousie University in Halifax. “The further expansion – about the lined up – I do not see enough energy to achieve this goal or start the process.”
More cooperation?
According to Zaiotti, it is more likely than full membership for Canada, “an advanced form of cooperation”.
According to Michael Emerson, a former EU ambassador to Russia in the Center for European Political Studies in Brussels, this could have the form of a “maximum deepening of the relationship in all reports: political, economic, cultural and security”.
Or the EU could try to create completely new alliances.
“You could imagine a … loose multilateral grouping of like-minded people without the United States,” Emerson wrote in an email. “Then the entire democratic Europe and the rest of the non-US-OECD could develop a collective diplomatic attitude that claims our model of an illuminated West.”
The EU already has a certain ability to build this type of relationship. It is Concept of the “European neighborhood” Allowed partnerships with resource sharing with Armenia and Tunisia that go beyond typical trade agreements.
Some states, like Norway, are members of the European Economics area, a free trade block, without being members of the EU. Others are complete members, but not part of the Schengen Agreement, which enables visa-free trips or the euro zone that shares a currency and a central bank.
Canada Already takes part in Horizon European EU-financed research scholarship program worth more than $ 140 billion and other non-European countries such as New Zealand.
“It signals a new chapter in our relationship with the EU,” said François-Philippe Champagne, Canadian Minister of Science when he signed the contract last year.
Politicians have touched topics such as Waterbombers, AI and the environment about a hurricane in Newfoundland and Labrador, but politicians insist that international business will bring most local advantages. Peter Cowan of the CBC explained.
The President of the EU, Ursula von der Leyen, has now reduced no words about the advantages for Europe. Canada is “the only country in the western hemisphere with all raw materials required for lithium batteries,” she said – an important strategic resource when Europe shifted to green technology. “So I would say that this is a perfect game.”
In this way, European leaders seem open to the expansion of the definition of Europe and create “a European onion instead of a European Union”, as Blockmans expresses it.
“If there is a shift in the EU thinking, it would probably be possible to deepen strategic partnerships instead of reinterpreting the EU as a geographically unlimited alliance,” said Lavrelashvili.
You don’t choose your friends
Of course, “it will still be very difficult for Canada to separate from America,” said Garcia.
His biggest trading partner cannot be replaced overnight – not even the defense of the Canadian (or European) territory without American support.
“Europe is not a complete replacement for the United States,” said Lavrelashvili.
That is when Canadians want a replacement.
Robert Finbow, deputy director of the Jean Monnet Center in Dalhousie, said apparently hesitant to challenge Trump In a trade dispute.
Canadian companies have now “always rely on this (American) connection for profitability and rarely took alternative partners seriously enough,” he said.
There is also a risk that every step to deepen relationships with Europe could cause more American aggression.
“It would increase your feeling that the EU is an antagonist and opponent, not an ally,” said Argyroulis. “Imagine the feeling of people who are obsessed with border control to realize that they could share borders with the European Union.”
There is also another problem. If Canada is looking for Europe to escape politics in Trump style, it could bark the wrong tree.
Later this month there will be elections in Germany, an important EU member state in which the right-wing extremist Elon-Musk alternative for Germany (AfD) was party Ascend in the surveys.
Germans only join voters ItalyPresent AustriaPresent BelgiumPresent The Czech RepublicPresent HungaryPresent FinlandPresent PolandPresent NorwayPresent Netherlands And Francewho have granted politicians in the Trump politician in the style of public support or key power in the government in recent years.
“Canada can no longer be a matter of course with Europe,” said Lavrelashvili.
Everyone to say that Canadians and Europe may have some common values - but in this new political era, Europe and Trump can share even more values.
