cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/44418560
Half-joking comments about Canada joining the bloc have become common as Ottawa adapts to its fraying relationship with the United States.
France’s foreign minister Jean-Noël Barrot has floated the idea that Canada could one day join the European Union, using the transatlantic ally as a striking example of the bloc’s global appeal.
Speaking at the Europe 2026 conference in Berlin alongside his German counterpart Johann Wadephul, Barrot argued that the EU is increasingly attracting partners far beyond its borders as geopolitical tensions soar.
Barrot’s Canada remark was not presented as a concrete policy proposal, but rather as part of a broader argument that the EU is emerging as a “third superpower” capable of balancing the rivalry between the United States and China.
Sure does feel weird to think about a country not on the European continent becoming part of the European Union. Also, loosing the looney and the toonie from Canada’s currency would be a global tragedy.
A lot of countries in the European Union keep their old currencies. It is not mandatory.
But it would insulate Canada from the United States manipulating it. They absolutely should take on the euro.
France is closer to Canada than it is to England
Interesting fact, though capital city to capital city, Canada is an order of magnitude further from France than it is to England.
Also,
^might be more beneficial to copy paste text than to upload screenshots of said text so the size and formatting can jive with whatever device or client a person is using to read the comment^
cheers!
Just didn’t want to fuck around with formatting into block quotes lol, sometimes the laziness gets me
The Strait of Dover or Dover Strait,[a] historically known as the Dover Narrows, is the strait at the narrowest part of the English Channel, marking the boundary between the Channel and the North Sea, and separating Great Britain from continental Europe. The shortest distance across the strait, at 20.6 miles (33.2 km), is from the South Foreland, northeast of Dover in the English county of Kent, to Cap Gris Nez, a cape near to Calais in the French département of Pas-de-Calais. Between these points lies the most popular route for cross-channel swimmers.[1] The entire strait is within the territorial waters of France and the United Kingdom, but a right of transit passage under the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea allows vessels of other nations to move freely through the strait.
The islands are in the Gulf of St. Lawrence near the entrance of Fortune Bay, which extends into the southwestern coast of Newfoundland, near the Grand Banks of Newfoundland.[8] St. Pierre is 19 kilometres (10+1⁄2 nautical miles) from Point May on the Burin Peninsula of Newfoundland and 3,819 kilometres (2,373 mi) from Brest, the nearest city in Metropolitan France.[9] The tiny Canadian Green Island lies 10 kilometres (5+1⁄2 nmi) east of Saint Pierre, roughly halfway to Point May.
Here you go.
Thank you dear non lazy person
It was actually much easier than I expected since the mardown formatting came straight with the copy/paste!
Countries can join the EU without switching to the euro.
They are legally bound to eventually adopt the euro. But they can deliberately fail to meet the convergence criteria, like Sweden does.
