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Europe Scraps Offer to Make Canada an Associate Member

An invitation to deepen the relationship has become a dispute over what to call it

Europe invited Canada to become its first associate member and then discovered that Europe had neglected to ask Europe. Ursula von der Leyen made the announcement, Canada welcomed the idea, and several European governments subsequently inspected the invitation as though someone had found a suspicious package in the stationery cupboard. Germany wanted to know what the words meant. Other capitals worried about legal implications and precedent. By October 28, “associate membership” had been removed from the draft summit declaration and replaced with “ever closer association.” The noun was apparently dangerous. The aspiration could remain under supervision.

I was born and raised in Antwerp and moved to Canada in 1979. This kind of stupidity is among the reasons I left. I recognize the mentality immediately: the solemn conviction that nothing sensible should happen until every person with the power to obstruct it has received sufficient recognition. Give these people a door, and they will establish a working group on whether opening it prejudices the future status of windows. Meanwhile, the people who wanted to walk through it grow old in the corridor.

Canada has reasons to want a stronger relationship with Europe. We have an enormous neighbour whose president has threatened our sovereignty and used trade as an instrument of coercion. Reducing our dependence on Washington requires actual arrangements with actual partners. Europe, meanwhile, has invited us to discuss closer co-operation in defence production, critical minerals, technology, and energy. There is useful work available. Unfortunately, useful work has encountered a terminology problem, which, in Brussels, appears to carry roughly the same urgency as an approaching army.

The charitable explanation is that governments should understand an agreement before endorsing it. Of course they should. If someone offers me membership in a club, I would like to know the fees and whether I am expected to clean the toilets. “Associate membership” has no established definition in the European Union treaties. Asking what........

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