Joachim Streit has never stepped foot in Canada. But that hasn’t stopped the German politician from launching a tenacious, one-man campaign that he readily describes as “aspirational”: to have the North American country join the EU.
“We have to strengthen the European Union,” said Streit, who last year was elected as a member of the European parliament. “And I think Canada – as its prime minister says – is the most European country outside of Europe.”
While he admitted that the possibility of Canada as a full member of the EU “may be aspirational for now”, he wondered if it was an idea whose time had come.
“Canada would be a strong member,” he said. “If Canada would be a member of the EU, it would rank 4th in terms of GDP. It’s part of Nato. And 58% of (working-age) Canadians have college degrees.”
What part of what I wrote are you referring to?
Your comment wasn’t complex enough to merit this question. I was referring to the only part of your comment where it was relevant to. Which is almost all of it.
So you’re saying that the EU doesn’t work in a way that allows closer cooperation and integration without membership. That’s factually wrong. This model works for Switzerland, Norway and Iceland.
Got any more snark?
Oh, I have a lot of that, but I’m realising you need everything to be spelled out very thoroughly and subtlety is lost on you, so here we go:
The EU isn’t an authoritarian institution that you are afraid of, and as Britain’s example showed, the closer you are to being a full member, the better the benefits, and the more you’re trying to play a big boy, the more you’re in the shit.
Canada doesn’t have the proper ratio of citizens to stored Nazi gold to properly pull off Switzerland thing anyway.
But sure, closer cooperation is better than no cooperation