I would think that now that the alliance is established, any new members who joined could join as limited or associate members for the first X years as the country transitions to full EU membership. Politics takes time and there are likely specific legal frameworks Canada (or any given new EU country) would need to adopt.
It takes a long time to integrate with the EU Single Market even without having to actually design an entire new form of association, which is what an EU Associated Member would be.
All you have to do is look at the time it took to negotiate the British Exit Treaty which established their relationship with the EU after Leave, and this was a nation which started with regulatory norms entirelly aligned with the EU ones and wanted to be free to set their own norms on some domains, so a much simpler situation than trying to come up with a semi-convergence standard for countries following completelly different norms which aren’t trying to fully converge with EU norms to become EU members (the latter being a process that usually takes more than a decade, by the way).
So far all we have is the kind of rosy and incredibly vague talkie-talkie from a particularly incompetent salesman-type on the EU side, well before the “technical” people even just start looking into how to actually do it.
There being true will amongst the EU countries for this (which I believe there is: in the various countries here I lived in, the perception of Canadians is very positive), I suspect this “EU Member Association” from von der Leyen will in practice just be a fancy name for broad trade treaty on Products, rather than something akin to the EEA association.
Doesn’t mean that Canada and the EU can’t further converge and the thing turn into much more in the mid and long term, though, just don’t expect this talkie-talkie to yield anything genuinelly significative (rather than just loud politician proclamations about something which in practice is nothing special) in a year or two.
The whole Freedom Of Movement thing follows from the Single Market being an integrated market on not just Products but also Services, and people being able to move to and work anywhere in it is a requirement from any individual or company anywhere inside the Single Market being able to provide said services to any individual or company anywhere else in it.
So without integration into the Single Market it’s highly unlikely that an outside state gets Freedom Of Movement (I believe this has never happenned) and as I wrote, integration is very complex and takes a lot of time for countries which aren’t already deeply aligned with EU Regulatory Norms, which Canada is not (because it’s mainly aligned with US Regulatory Norms, which in some domains - for example the regulatory principle used for approving entry of chemical substances in the consumer market, which for the US is “allow until proven dangerous” whilst in the EU it’s “only allow after proven safe” - are entirelly imcompatible with EU Norms)
I would think that now that the alliance is established, any new members who joined could join as limited or associate members for the first X years as the country transitions to full EU membership. Politics takes time and there are likely specific legal frameworks Canada (or any given new EU country) would need to adopt.
It takes a long time to integrate with the EU Single Market even without having to actually design an entire new form of association, which is what an EU Associated Member would be.
All you have to do is look at the time it took to negotiate the British Exit Treaty which established their relationship with the EU after Leave, and this was a nation which started with regulatory norms entirelly aligned with the EU ones and wanted to be free to set their own norms on some domains, so a much simpler situation than trying to come up with a semi-convergence standard for countries following completelly different norms which aren’t trying to fully converge with EU norms to become EU members (the latter being a process that usually takes more than a decade, by the way).
So far all we have is the kind of rosy and incredibly vague talkie-talkie from a particularly incompetent salesman-type on the EU side, well before the “technical” people even just start looking into how to actually do it.
There being true will amongst the EU countries for this (which I believe there is: in the various countries here I lived in, the perception of Canadians is very positive), I suspect this “EU Member Association” from von der Leyen will in practice just be a fancy name for broad trade treaty on Products, rather than something akin to the EEA association.
Doesn’t mean that Canada and the EU can’t further converge and the thing turn into much more in the mid and long term, though, just don’t expect this talkie-talkie to yield anything genuinelly significative (rather than just loud politician proclamations about something which in practice is nothing special) in a year or two.
Everyone thinking this leads to freedom of movement well be very disappointed.
The whole Freedom Of Movement thing follows from the Single Market being an integrated market on not just Products but also Services, and people being able to move to and work anywhere in it is a requirement from any individual or company anywhere inside the Single Market being able to provide said services to any individual or company anywhere else in it.
So without integration into the Single Market it’s highly unlikely that an outside state gets Freedom Of Movement (I believe this has never happenned) and as I wrote, integration is very complex and takes a lot of time for countries which aren’t already deeply aligned with EU Regulatory Norms, which Canada is not (because it’s mainly aligned with US Regulatory Norms, which in some domains - for example the regulatory principle used for approving entry of chemical substances in the consumer market, which for the US is “allow until proven dangerous” whilst in the EU it’s “only allow after proven safe” - are entirelly imcompatible with EU Norms)