European Union member states have blocked a proposal by European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen to grant Canada a special status as an “associate member” of the bloc.
German Chancellor Friedrich Merz and several other EU leaders pushed to remove the term from a draft declaration ahead of a two-day EU-Canada summit beginning Thursday in Montreal, according to diplomats cited by the dpa and AFP news agencies.
Instead, the revised document calls for a plan to establish “closer ties” between
the eu doesn’t have anything called “associate membership” so if this passed they would have had to actually define what that means. makes sense to change the wording to something less formal but equally signifying.
Pretty much everyone agrees they should simply be part of EEA (economic area) like Norway, not an associate. If you’re going to do this, do this right instead of making up some new terminology for specific country that no one really knows what that even means.
Right now it just looks like posturing.
Have you seen any European international agreements? There isn’t a single god damn treaty that doesn’t have some vague country-specific exceptions.
exactly.
…that’s an oxymoron? The formality is what gave it significance.
I feel like the significance is in the terms of the deal and not the wording. It sounds like it’s to avoid never ending linguistics bureaucracy.
An associate member could have many of the benefits of being in the bloc without paying adequate dues or holding enough responsibilities. It needs hashing out.
Ya, I think they wanted to avoid the hashing out when it wasn’t part of the deal to begin with from what I understand.
“closer ties” is a statement of intent. “associate member” is a category of member.
If you do the manager’s duties and get called the head lackey, it’s not very formal but still significant.