Six weeks ago, European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen invited Canada to become the European Union's first "associate member." On Wednesday, the EU took the invitation back. Canada never got to see the clubhouse, mostly because nobody had built it.
I've watched a lot of countries get rejected by Europe. This is the first one rejected from a category that doesn't exist.
Here's what's real, per Reuters, POLITICO, Euronews and CBC. Von der Leyen floated "associate membership" in her State of the Union speech in September, which caught several EU governments off guard. There is no legal definition of an EU associate member. There is no precedent. There was, for about six weeks, a very nice speech.
Then the paperwork arrived. Germany, backed by France, Greece and Italy, objected to putting the term in the joint declaration for this week's EU-Canada summit in Montreal. Diplomats told CBC that Berlin called it a red line. Euronews reports Germany's position was that it couldn't sign up to a status that isn't in the treaties and hasn't been fleshed out.
That's the most German sentence ever written, and for once it's correct. You can't join something that doesn't exist. Ask anyone who has ever bought a timeshare.
So the new draft promises an "ever closer association of Canada to the EU, short of full membership itself." POLITICO notes the text drifts from "even closer" to "ever closer" partway through, which means the EU couldn't even hold one adjective steady for a whole document. Both sides will now spend until the 2027 summit defining what "ever closer association" means.
A year of meetings to define a phrase. In Brussels, that counts as a fast-track.
The declaration also proposes a joint feasibility study on Canadian liquefied natural gas exports to Europe. Europe has been short on gas since 2022. Canada has an ocean of it. They have agreed to study whether gas can be moved across water, a question the whole shipping industry answered a while back.
Prime Minister Mark Carney took it in stride. "The good news is it doesn't matter about specific names or nomenclature," he said. "What matters is the difference it will make to the lives of Canadians." That is what you say when you've been uninvited from the party, and you say it while still holding the gift bag.
Meanwhile, CBC reports von der Leyen kept using the term in a social media post as she landed in Montreal on Wednesday, hours after the member states had cut it. She proposed a membership nobody approved and kept announcing it after they cancelled it. At this point she isn't the president of the Commission. She's its hype man.
On the sewer scale, I give the whole production three rats out of five. One rat for von der Leyen, who offered a status with no rules. One rat for the 27 governments who needed six weeks to notice. And one rat for the new phrase, "ever closer association," which in diplomatic language translates to "we'll call you."
Canada asked for a seat at Europe's table. Europe handed it a feasibility study and a definition due in 2027. That's not associate membership. That's an associate membership card, laminated, with no club on the back.
And here's your bill: diesel averaged $6.33 a gallon on Oct. 29, per AAA, up from $3.68 a year ago, and that's the fuel hauling your groceries while two continents argue about adjectives.
This article is satire. The Demorat is a parody news site; real facts are drawn from the linked sources, and jokes, invented scenes, and fictional characters are not real.
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