It’s time for us to play the field

AMID US president Donald Trump’s tariffs and annexation threats, Sigmar Gabriel, former German vice chancellor and foreign minister, made a curious suggestion in an interview with German media outlet The Pioneer: invite Canada into the European Union. Soon after, Guy Verhofstadt, former prime minister of Belgium, addressed Canada on X to say that “[t]here is no reason why EU membership should be off the table.” The thought of this North Atlantic alliance excited some Canadians and Europeans—one YouTube video even theorized how “CANEU” (read: canoe) would be a “global superpower.”

To learn more about what the possibilities are for Canada and the EU, I spoke with Mark Camilleri, president and CEO of the Canada EU Trade and Investment Association—CEUTIA—based in Brussels.

“In terms of trade, what similarities do Canada and the EU share?”

There’s a lot of complementarities when you go across sectors. Take mining, for example. Canada has an abundance of natural resources that the EU doesn’t have, but Europe creates and makes a lot of industrial equipment that helps extract those resources. Europe has a certain need for these resources as part of their own economic security.

If you take a look at the fertilizer that Canada produces, Europe needs it to support their agricultural sector. Another example is nuclear energy. Nuclear is going through a renaissance at the moment, and Canada can basically cover the full supply chain from mining uranium to building nuclear reactors.

  • jmcs@discuss.tchncs.de
    10·
    22 hours ago

    They could be welcomed into the EU in a heartbeat.

    Assuming they completely changed their food and product regulations and adapted everything from agricultural and animal husbandry to building codes to match the EU overnight.

    Otherwise it’s more of a decades long process.

    Even CETA is still not ratified because Canadian ranchers and farmers still insist on using growth hormones and have trouble dealing with European GMO tracking and labelling.

    • Snowstorm@lemmy.caEnglish
      15·
      21 hours ago

      Yet as a Canadian I will welcome agricultural rules harmonization with EU. Give a five year frame to reach 70 % and 10 years to reach above 95 %. Present the thing to Canadian as a matter of sovereignty while reminding our farmers that the current buy Canadian frenzy is a net positive for them if they see it under the “opportunity” light.

      Invite Canada as an “observer” at the EU table for as long as these discussions are successful, it will mess with Trump gang.

    • CanadaPlus@lemmy.sdf.org
      2·
      7 hours ago

      Yeah, there’s reason to think they’d accept Canada, and they definitely could, but it’s not like an on-switch thing.

      Gaining membership is basically the last step in a long series of reforms which we could be doing either way.

    • HellsBelle@sh.itjust.worksOPEnglish
      4·
      21 hours ago

      Most of Canada’s beef cattle come from Alberta so passing CETA should soon be a breeze – just let Alberta know that their market will only be Canada (if they use growth hormone) or the world (if they don’t).

      If they’re smart they’ll choose right.