He never went to Canada but he loves the country. “For me, it's a dream of freedom and better America,” said Joachim Streit, a member of the Liberal Renewal Group, told Euronews. “A dream of emigrants that many others have experienced.”
What first seemed to have a political farce has become a semi-serious debate, because US President Donald Trump narrated and caused Canadians to convert Canada to 51st state.
When, in mid-March, the new Prime Minister of Canada Mark Carney broke with tradition by visiting Europe rather than Washington for its first trip abroad as head of its country, Carney told its hosts in Paris that Canada is “the most European of non-European countries”, alluding to the French and British roots in his country.
Some in Brussels felt encouraged to push for more, and Joachim Streit was among them.
Enthed by the publication at the end of February of surveys suggesting that a superb 46% of Canadians would help Canada join the EUStreit again brought the issue to the European Commission.
Brussels had already felt obliged to react to intense chatting on social media advocating the members of the EU following the hostile rhetoric during Trump.
In a March briefing, a commission spokesperson underlined Article 49 of the European Union Treaty This states that “any European state … can apply to become a member” – in other words: only European states.
In a parliamentary question to the executive body of the block a few days later, Streit stressed the sustainable advantages of Canadian membership for the EU.
He “widen his single market, would create sales opportunities, would facilitate the exchange of goods and services and would be better able to resist threats of global security prices and risks”.
The Commission would propose a legal revision of article 49 to allow Canadian members, asked Streit. He is still waiting for an answer.
The term “European State” could be legally flexible, Stit in Euronews told. After all, there is the member of the EU Cyprus which is technically a state of Western Asia.
And there are French and Dutch territories in the Caribbean, Spanish and Portuguese Islands in the Atlantic and Greenland, an autonomous region of the Kingdom of Denmark – all (currently) part of the European Union.
Greenland and Canada even share a land border Between the island Liemere and the point most west of Greenland In winter, when solidly frozen sea ice creates a terrestrial bridge.
In fact, the Canadian soldiers would have made Inuit backwards who wandered through the Dresoon Canal, the northern part of the Nares Strait, on foot in Canadian territory in the past.
Thus, Streit sees Canada and the EU as existing neighbors and partners and considers that more must be done. “Sometimes in history, the doors open and then close again. And sometimes the doors are only open for a brief moment ”, Streit declared during a committee hearing in the European Parliament At the beginning of April.
ADVERTISEMENTAt the end of April, Streit wrote a letter to two EU commissioners, Roxana Minzatu and Ekaterina Zaharieva, in charge of social rights and research respectively, exhorting them “to set up an academic and professional exchange” between Canada and the EU.
“This would allow EU officials to familiarize themselves with the particularities of Canada, and at the same time, this would allow Canadian officials to also learn the development of EU policies with EU institutions,” said Streit in the letter seen by Euronews. He calls it a “Erasmus Politique” framework.
Such an initiative could be a springboard towards membership in Canada, hopes Stit. If it is not a complete subscription, at least a close relationship as with Switzerland or Norway.
“After all, we are people of the same ilk with the same set of values. Where can we find this? “
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