54
Germany leads push against EU’s ‘associate membership’ label for Canada (www.politico.eu)
submitted 2 weeks ago by to c/world
10 comments fedilink hide all child comments

all 10 comments

sorted by: hot top controversial new old
[–] 25 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

For fucks sake, the incompetent black rock manager chancellor cosplayer should just go lick some eggs already…

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    He never was a manager for BlackRock - nobody sane would give him operative control over anything they value. He had a "we pay you for political access, don't touch anything" cushy position as the chairmen of their supervisory board.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 14 points 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    I'm very sorry!

    I'm German and this grumpy emulation of a chancellor is almost as bad as the orange guy on the other side of the ocean. Ours is as detached from reality as the orange dude, just not as demented yet. He's just genuinely a bad person.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
    • [–] 5 points 2 weeks ago (3 children)

    So is Canada seeking preferential treatment or what? The article doesn't really explain, just quotes complaints from diplomats from countries opposing the "alliance" and how bad the economical impact will be, but it's still not clear what the problem is.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • hideshow 3 child comments
    •
  • [–] 8 points 2 weeks ago (2 children)

    They are using the term "Associate member" to define the relationship but it has never been defined what that means and doesn't exist in any eu treaty. Also it could cause confusion with the existing EU term "association agreements".

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 2 child comments
    •
  • [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago (1 child)

    That part i understood but again why the pushback? It's not like they can't put it to a vote on how to call it, they can call it the intercontinental treaty or some shit like that.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
  • hideshow 1 child comment
    •
  • [–] 3 points 2 weeks ago* (last edited 2 weeks ago)

    That part i understood but again why the pushback?

    The German pushback stems imho from Merz belonging to the CDU, whose political core can be summed up as

    • Almost completely blind worship of the USA and
    • Class warfare against the working class.

    In their mind they just need to wait out the Orange Man and then most things can just go back to how they were before. They don't want to make Him angry in the meantime, which the "associate member" label would certainly lead to.

    EDIT: Ursula von der Leyen is imho actually pretty far removed from her party's stance on this.

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
  • parent
    • [–] 2 points 2 weeks ago

    I sense some serious the German business model™ is threatened vibes

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •
    [–] 1 point 2 weeks ago

    Merz is in Trump's pocket

  • permalink
  • fedilink
  • source
    •