Australia 'on the same page' as Canada as it seeks deeper EU alliance

vvrganj about 2 hours ago 55 commentsRead Article on reddit.com

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Discussion (55 Comments)Read Original on HackerNews

consumer451•about 1 hour ago

The reddit post links to: https://www.reuters.com/business/australia-on-same-page-cana...

vrganj•about 1 hour ago

Ooops, I meant to link Reuters, not Reddit. @mods, could you change?

toomuchtodo•about 1 hour ago

Tags do not work, email mods, email in footer ("contact").

world2vec•5 minutes ago

An "expanded" Schengen Area that crosses the Atlantic and Pacific oceans and brings Canada, Australia (and Japan, maybe?) into the fold would be an incredible thing. I'm all for it.

dmix•26 minutes ago

Canada has long had a very good free trade deal with the EU, which eliminated 98% of tariffs in 2016 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Economic_and_Tra...

dismalaf•5 minutes ago

Of course the 2% of items not included are pretty substantial; agricultural products with strict quotas.

There's also strict country of origin rules so if too many materials are sourced outside Canada, even if its made in Canada it can be subject to tariffs. Not to mention needing to adhere to EU standards.

BIGFOOT_EXISTS•31 minutes ago

LOL Canada should seek deeper internal alliances first. Since 2015, every year the QoL gets worse.

cwillu•8 minutes ago

Is the declining QoL in the room right now?

Gregkion•19 minutes ago

There is a group of people in canada which takes care of QoL and another group of people taking care of external relationships and trade.

And normally this helps a country?

kakacik•26 minutes ago

Why not both? Perfection is the enemy of good.

More good reliable friends is always better, and fuck the unreliable backstabbing ones as much as possible and reasonable, future will sort out details. World is not static, alliances change and we may revert in future if US population decides it wants to be ruled over by more reasonable, respectable and kind people.

ovi256•21 minutes ago

It has always surprised me that the 'free world', NATO countries, developed countries (including Japan, Taiwan, Australia), however one wants to call them, do not have at least free trade, if not free movement of people and capital, between them.

A travesty, IMO. And a great loss making us all poorer. Not a patchwork of point-to-point free trade agreements, but several hub agreements that countries join, and, in time, the hubs agree to free trade between them too.

pjc50•6 minutes ago

The politics of this is grindingly difficult; people think of "them and us", not "we're all together in three free world". Achieving free trade means either dismantling all the little market carve-outs that local politics relies on, or enshrining them in the collective (EU farming policy).

Imagine trying to integrate the politics of Japanese rice farming into the CAP.

Steve16384•20 minutes ago

I guess that's what the EU is trying to be.

graemep•11 minutes ago

The EU is specifically European - its in the name. Many of the arguments for the Eu that came up during Brexit were based on the importance of geographical proximity and shared culture.

nemomarx•14 minutes ago

The schengen zone is exactly this hub agreement isn't it?

gus_massa•5 minutes ago

IIRC schengen zone is about people, not about goods. There are like 10 almost overlaping zones. This is a map recently posted by amenghra:

https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1tda6wl/european_in...

Aldipower•12 minutes ago

Is Schen-zen a city in China?

svara•41 minutes ago

Amazing, let's please do Japan and Taiwan next.

GoToRO•38 minutes ago

Japan ambassador in Romania said just that in an interview.

akie•22 minutes ago

Russia and the US seek to expand by invasion, at the same time there are NINE countries with a stated ambition to join the European Union, and now there seem to be even more countries who want to "more closely align" with the EU (whatever that means).

Whenever countries consider their needs and desires, and what they want their country to be, they look at the countries of Europe - not at Russia, not at the US, and not at China.

valeg•11 minutes ago

PRC's trade surplus is pushing for a wide customs union. This is a part of this trend.

dismalaf•14 minutes ago

Canada doesn't even have free trade internally... It's literally easier to sell to the US or EU than to another province.

thunderfork•3 minutes ago

It'd depend on what you're selling, surely? I've never had any problems of this sort with basic retail product, for example

s_dev•about 1 hour ago

For me the most striking thing about this was before the Brexit referendum there was rhetoric about how the UK would form a CANZUK alliance with free movement of people and goods between these countries, forming a sort of English speaking EU.

Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members which is unlikely anyway (deeper ties are definitely on the table though), these sort of announcements should put to bed these complete and utter fantasies the UK has about leading some alternative world order where it's in charge and can go toe to toe with the EU.

https://boris-johnson.com/2013/08/25/the-aussies-are-just-li...

https://www.ippr.org/articles/could-the-idea-of-the-anglosph...

Even many British would agree that Brexit was full of absolute lies, and even to this day you still see them being repeated in certain circles. These weren't even possibilities.

josephg•39 minutes ago

Australian here. Theres no way we’re joining the EU. Brussels is on the other side of the planet from Australia. Our major trading partners are nearby countries, like China, Japan, NZ, and the US. Not continental Europe. Europe is too far away.

ceejayoz•28 minutes ago

Brussels and DC are almost the same distance from Canberra.

(Also Australian, but living in the US.)

https://ustr.gov/countries-regions/southeast-asia-pacific/au...

> U.S. goods and services (exports plus imports) trade with Australia totaled an estimated $102.0 billion in 2025, up 15.6 percent ($13.8 billion) from 2024.

https://www.consilium.europa.eu/en/infographics/eu-australia...

> In 2024, trade in goods and services between the European Union and Australia was worth over €91 billion.

(That's $105B in FreedomBucks, and excludes the UK.)

josephg•10 minutes ago

> Brussels and DC are almost the same distance from Canberra.

Yes. We’re not interested in joining the EU. And we’re not interested in becoming a US state.

But trade doesn’t need to go all the way to DC. By plane, Sydney to LA is about - 13.5 hours. Sydney to Brussels is 20 hours. I imagine the difference is even greater for cargo ships, which can sail directly through the pacific. I have no idea how cargo goes from Australia to Europe. That sounds like a complex route.

As for trade, the US is important but they’re not our most important trading partner. China accounts for $326 billion aud in trade annually. If your numbers are right, that’s more than our trade with the US and Europe combined.

I suspect integrating into the EU single market wouldn’t be worth it for us. We’re not part of Europe. We’re not a European country.

https://www.dfat.gov.au/geo/china/china-country-brief

epihelix•6 minutes ago

Did you read TFA (the Reuters one) that quotes the Australian trade minister? Or are you somehow more involved in determining trade agreements than the minister?

Trump has upended decades of stable trade relationships. I would not assume anything right now.

(To be clear, neither Canada nor Australia are claimed to be seeking to be EU members - but closer trade ties with the EU appear to be on the cards for both nations. When you can no longer trust the US to act in good faith, everything changes.)

smackeyacky•about 1 hour ago

It is a total fantasy that Australia would throw back in with the ghost empire that is the UK. They literally have nothing to offer us apart from a figurehead head of state.

petre•6 minutes ago

Too bad those countries are so far apart even if they've once been part of the same empire.

ta20240528•36 minutes ago

"Even if Canada and Australia don't join the EU as full members"

The European project is bigger than the EU - that's just the central core.

There's also the EFTA, EEA, CEFTA, CU, Eurozone, Shengen, CoE, and Swiss-style bilateral treaties.

See https://thisbugslife.com/2021/05/10/graphic-representation-o...

Canada can easily find a home one of these.

s_dev•27 minutes ago

You might have missed this bit:

>deeper ties are definitely on the table though