Neither Greenland nor Hans Island are a part of the EU. The Kingdom of Denmark consists of three “constituent countries”; metropolitan Denmark, Faroe Islands, and Greenland; and out of them is only metropolitan Denmark part of the EU, while Greenland; which includes Hans Island; is not.
It is definitely fully possible that a way could be found in which a membership could be mutually beneficial. I personally do not think so, but that of course does not mean that it is not possible.
However, regarding smuggling do I wish to clarify that my big worry are ships. If a ship comes to Rotterdam from Amsterdam or if it comes to Rotterdam from Dublin or Porto does not really matter, both are inside the single market so are treated as internal. Everything on board those ships are already assumed to follow the rules of the single market and just a few spot checks are made. However, if it comes to Rotterdam from Montreal so is it checked much more thoroughly, as it is external. If Canada were to become a member of the EU would that change and Montreal would be checked as little as Dublin or Porto, meaning as long as you get something into Canada is it in the EU and will likely not be caught. The only solution would be to keep on treating the ship from Montreal as external, but in that case would Canada already be excluded from one of the biggest benefits of being a member.
How would you address them and what would those economic benefits be, that would not be lost while trying to address the issues and that would outweigh the costs of addressing the issues?
Well, if neither side would benefit from a membership so is there no point to it. And regarding land border, do you mean St Pierre and Miquelon (which almost have a land border) or Hans Island? If so so is neither really a part of the EU and have a small respectively no population, so are somewhat irrelevant.
In short, geography. The EU is more than just an economic union and is just growing tighter. Hence, were Canada an EU member would they need to fund projects that they would have limited benefit from and follow rules that do not make sense to them. Meanwhile the EU would more than double its external border, which would make smuggling even easier, and with limited benefits as the real hindrance to trade is the distance. The only solution would be to give Canada so many exceptions that they would barely even be members.
I’m fully for trade deals and cooperation on areas of common interest. But a full membership would not benefit either side.
To put “(future EU member)” on Canada but nothing on Turkey, who despite negotiations currently being frozen still are a member of both the EUCU and the CoE, is definitely a choice. I’m not a fan of Erdogan and personally do not think that Turkey, nor Canada for that matter, should ever become EU members. However, given the point of the group does it seem pointless to make political statements that are completely off topic. Turkey is closer, not just geographically, to the EU than what Canada is; whether we like it or not.
One thing to add is that she is basically right of the far-right. Before the latest EU election were German AfD kicked out of ID (now PfE), for being too extreme. Hence, after the election did AfD gather other parties that were too crazy for ID/PfE and created ESN. Șoșoacă and her SOS Romania originally wished to join ESN, but wasn’t allowed to join due to objections from other parties. Basically, you have centre right in EPP, right wing in ECR, far-right in PfE, far-far-right in ESN, and one step further is Șoșoacă.
It is well known that the far-right have always opposed anti-semitism /s
This conference is clearly about “combatting” something else. That they refer to it as “combatting anti-semitism” is just disgusting.
Inte helt orimligt att fråga vänner och allierade om några ägg. Tråkigt för USA att de varken har vänner eller allierade
50 years would be 2075, assuming that they don’t run out of money or lose interest by then. The World Cup in 2034 is slightly before 2075. Hence, is the plan to host it in a construction site or doing it digitally in their lovely digital model of the stadium?
I was really happy a few weeks ago when I went through all my software and noticed that Inoreader was from the EU. Great modern RSS reader.
The article is about boycotts in Sweden. Two examples are given, but only one from Sweden. The first link is Danish.
It is correct and great that people in Sweden boycott the USA, but take the details with a pinch of salt as the author seems very unfamiliar with Sweden.
An alternative title had been “Trump accepts millions in bribes”. $75mn of those from one fraudster who seem to have bought himself a “Get Out of Jail Free card” https://edition.cnn.com/2025/02/28/business/crypto-mogul-trump-coins-civil-fraud-charges/index.html
Not disagreeing with anything OP said, but one downside with DeepL is that it is not great as a lexicon. Basically, if you want to translate one single word instead of a longer text, as can be useful for example if you run into a word you do not know in a language which you otherwise have some grasp of. However, Google is neither good at this. One site/app/company that is good at it though is the French site/app/company Reverso. Hence, if you based on this post try DeepL and notice that it does not really suit your needs, like happened to me, so is that no need to go back to Google.
That’s four weeks from now. Feels like rather pointless “news” as everyone knows he will change his mind a dozen timesby then
Should clarify that what I meant with it making sense in the UK is that their election system results in that the party that get most seats usually get over 50%, which means that “winning” and winning often become the same thing. Except 2017, when the Tories only lacked 5 seats to have over 50%, and 2010, when the Tories and LibDem were in a rare coalition, so do you have to go all the way back to 1974 to find another election where the party that “won” did not get over 50% and 1923 to find an election where the party that “won” de facto lost. Hence, I do understand the use of that language there, as it usually is relevant who “won”.
Great news. However, am I the only one annoyed by the phrase “winning an election”, used three times in the article? I note that the author is from the UK and that phrase does make sense in their system. However, in most of Europe is it not weird or even uncommon that the party that gets the most votes and seats de facto lose the election and end up in opposition; as it’s all about getting more than 50% of the parliament. Getting the most votes and seats is nothing more than nice statistics, if you can’t get more than 50% behind you.
A more accurate text had been “FPÖ, despite getting the most seats in the parliament, are in the end in fact losers”
They probably should explain to the Murican government that we in Europe have something called freedom of speech and that governments, and especially foreign governments, do not have the right to censor specific words that happen to offend them.
Thank you, I’ll read up on the issue there
I agree. While I hope Hungary will change path after next year’s election and that both UK and Ukraine will be members within my lifetime (I’m still young, so there is hopefully time left) so do I agree with the main point. There should be a lot of opportunities to get closer and cooperate with countries outside of the EU, without membership, and Canada is already one of the closest countries to the EU and I want the EU and Canada to get as close as makes sense (and I’m certain there are many areas, including those you list, on which it makes sense to get closer).