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Australia says it could follow Canada in forging deeper ties with EU

• 62 Comments
• As an Australian, I have noticed a shift personally in feeling like I identify more with "European" culture, compared to 10 years ago I felt like we were the 51st state and I felt very close with the US.
  This seems to be shared by others, I remember reading there was a survey that asked Australians who they felt our closest international friend was. The US was the top answer for over a decade, having stolen the crown from the UK I think in the late 90s or something. Recently though, it switched to New Zealand.

  By mindwok an hour ago

• As I understand it, the demographics of Australia mean that its people as a whole now identify with Asian culture. India and China, specifically.

  By zulux 41 minutes ago

• Identify in what way? What do you mean by "identity with"? The other poster is speaking of their own experience

  By loufe 33 minutes ago

• Talking to Americans

  By 1attice 10 minutes ago

• You do not understand it.
  You are probably listening or watching the same folks who are calling the UK an "Islamic sultanate".

  By marcus_holmes 25 minutes ago

• And as an Australian, you have no clue what you’re talking about lol. Not even worth addressing beyond saying no, that’s not accurate.

  By avazhi 13 minutes ago

• Australia's alignment with the US was a major consequence of World War 2 and the aftermath of that.
  Pre WW2 we were basically in lockstep with the UK. However after Singapore fell to the Japanese it became increasingly obvious that the UK could not be relied upon to defend Australia. At the time most of the elite Australian troops were fighting in North Africa (El-Alamein, Tobruk etc). and there was a genuine perceived threat that Australia could be invaded. PNG which was Australian territory at the time was invaded. The Japanese bombing of Darwin only intensified this.
  Almost overnight our foreign policy swung behind the US instead. Post WW2 this led to things like the ANZUS Treaty. It is the reason there are US military bases in Australia and the reason why we have followed the US into all of their wars which we arguably had no business involving ourselves in (Vietnam, Iraq etc.).
  Personally I feel the recent actions of the US are not beneficial to Australia's interests at all. Trump has squandered an awful lot of accumulated goodwill already, even if another government is elected in US a lot of damage has already been done.

  By bigger_cheese 30 minutes ago

• From the American side it felt like we had more cross-pollination with Australia in the 90s than in the decades following. Disney even had a studio out there that animated some of the TV shows it aired in the US (and presumably in Australia too).
  Not sure what changed.

  By cosmic_cheese an hour ago

• Apart from the "Crocodile Dundee" and "Men at Work" phenomena in the late 80s, there is no real cultural pollination between Australia and the US, as far as I can tell. It's too far away and there are no real reasons for Americans to visit, nor are there enough internationally notable Australian music brands, films, or products that give visibility to the country, which is one price of being a commodity producing nation rather than finished goods. We know about Japanese and British prodigious cultural output, Japanese manufactures, German cars and Swiss machine tools and watches, but what product makes Australia stand out? Coal, copper, etc.
  Didn't Australia used to have an auto industry? I kinda feel like Australia stopped producing culturally relevant output in the late 80s or 90s.

  By carefree-bob 38 minutes ago

• Haven’t Australians just moved to US - Keith Urban, Chris Hemsworth, Russel Crowe, Nicole Kidman, Margot Robbie and the list goes on … it’s not the same way as Japanese’s or Korean output, because English as the native language makes the transition seamless and doesn’t stand out.
  Oh! I forgot JIRA and Atlassian are Australian too :D Now you really can’t deny you haven’t felt the Australian influence in your life. Lol

  By tecoholic 19 minutes ago

• That's a good point, the US might just be sucking all the culturally relevant output out of the country.

  By carefree-bob 9 minutes ago

• Don't forget Bluey :)
  (which like most good Australian innovations only became global when it was licensed to another country, in Bluey's case the BBC/UK)

  By pinchydev 18 minutes ago

• I'm surprised - aren't AU & NZ super close culturally and aligned politically? I would have thought the US, CA, et al would be vying for a distant second.

  By mynameisash 43 minutes ago

• Not only close, but NZ was originally slated to join Australia and is indeed named in the original Australian Constitution (that created federation) as one of the original 7 states.

  By pinchydev 14 minutes ago

• NZ is always the correct answer but is rarely given because it's taken for granted.

  By BLKNSLVR 31 minutes ago

• If they'd only just admit they didn't invent Pavlova, it would definitely be obvious. But the Kiwis are a stubborn bunch...

  By marcus_holmes 24 minutes ago

• NZ isn't big enough to think about. Don't tell them because they get very upset.

  By bashtoni 16 minutes ago

• As a German guy who backpacked through Australia for a while when I was studying the drinking culture definitely made you guys seem European I can you tell you that much, I didn't feel far from home

  By Barrin92 44 minutes ago

• I don't believe that. Can you find this survey you were talking about?

  By drekipus an hour ago

• Basic web search for “australia survey closest international friend” returned https://poll.lowyinstitute.org/charts/australias-best-friend...

  By latexr an hour ago

• I'm guessing Canada and Australia would go for an EFTA 'lite' type deal. As EFTA doesn't require a customs union it's probably the easiest to implement and build up from.
  I think they amended EFTA to require free movement which was a no-op as all the EFTA countries had free movement with the EU. I could see the EU agreeing to a NAFTA style workers visa if they really wanted push the freedom of movement side hence the 'lite' bit.

  By spiralpolitik 26 minutes ago

• If .ca and .au did arrange free movement in and out of the EU (and with each other?), that would really be the cherry on the Brexit cake.

  By flir 11 minutes ago

• It is an interesting position we are in here, I suspect we will do the usual thing and walk the middle road. Australia, is part of the Commonwealth, huge trade partner with Asia and allies with the US. Why not throw Canada into the mix some more.
  This setup is why I call this place an equal opportunist whore. If we can do business with you, we will. I also call it the worlds largest Mining town, but that just acknowledging the reality of the place a little.
  As much as many are going against the US, I don't think there is much constitution at the top here to make such a bold move. We will just be pottering around down here hoping all the bad stuff passes us by as nobody notices us.

  By FlowingRiver 2 hours ago

• I'm Australian and am increasingly ok with this approach. I'm growing slowly out of a protectionist mindset, toward one of cautious, and considered collaboration. Singapore follows this approach and it has worked well for them so far.

  By bGl2YW5j an hour ago

• Singapore is a city, Australia is a continent. Singapore is a poor analog for pretty much every other country. It was founded precisely because it sits near a busy sea route. It makes sense for Singapore to be very open to trade. That does not mean it works for Australia.
  (I'm not arguing that the reverse is true, just that Singapore proves nothing.)

  By xdennis an hour ago

• What do you reckon would work well for Aus?

  By bGl2YW5j 13 minutes ago

• its not just a city
  its an island and a country on it's own.
  but its posistioning is relevent yes.

  By senectus1 an hour ago

• India does the same. They try to be friendly (or at least on business terms) with as many countries as they can and stay out of global conflicts as much as possible. They were buying oil from Russia well after the Russia-Ukraine war started. It also worked well for India as they were able to get rock bottom prices.
  From a purely economic standpoint, this would make sense. Not sure what to feel about the ethics of it though - at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil. One can argue the Ukraine's problems are not India's problems. One could also argue it would be nice to not fund shitty wars, even a little, even indirectly.
  Geopolitics is a complex subject I suppose, for a layman like me.

  By akudha an hour ago

• > at least part of the Russian war bill was footed by the money India paid for Russian oil
  It's weird India gets held to this standard. Don't European countries still buy some natural gas from Russia?

  By triceratops 36 minutes ago

• Russian crude made up 35-40% of India's oil imports in 2024. I'm sure it is not much different at present. Although a bill just passed through congress that will allow Trump to put up to a 100% Tariff on Indian imports.

  By gg82 25 minutes ago

• Which is exactly the sensible plan.
  I want a government which does the cost effective thing, not one which tries to make statements with bold headlines.
  I want boring government policy which sensibly hedges against future risk in correct appreciation of our unbelievably fortunate geopolitical luck.

  By XorNot an hour ago

• They should resurrect the Commonwealth into a stronger union of sorts instead of just playing sports every four years.

  By ernsheong an hour ago

• The Australian government has always taken "great interest" in what Canada does in regards to policy - they practically copy Canada all the time, even my Economics lecturer made a point about this. This isn't news.
  Australia also has a huge problem with exports. For decades, China had huge demand for Australia's resources, particularly Iron Ore. However China is reducing this, so Australia needs a new plan.

  By bjt12345 an hour ago

• There are many obvious differences, but Canada and Australia share many characteristics and I find myself comparing to Aussies. Similar population, massive landmass, population mostly contained in narrow stripes at the edges, ex UK colony, middle power, etc..

  By kimos an hour ago

• you might be overstating the problem. for sure there's overreliance on China which is decreasing slightly (1-3% from what I remember), but Australian exports are still increasing because of the US, India, Japan and many others

  By willsmith72 an hour ago

• Just to be clear on this - Australia is primarily interested in methods of reducing trade barriers, not any sort of political union.
  Australia is economically served well by free trade: most of its production is low cost, high quality primary production of mining outputs and agricultural goods (grains, wool and meat) where if price and quality are the primary selection criteria it wins.
  The downside of this is that Australia hasn't really got any significant manufacturing or advanced technology industry.
  But it has made Australia one of the best performing economies of the past 25 years.

  By nl an hour ago

• A big part of what makes Australia a better performing economy is maintaining high population growth rate of 1.5%, mostly through immigration.
  Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.
  https://www.macrotrends.net/global-metrics/countries/aus/aus...

  By someperson an hour ago

• >Has had implications on housing affordability, but it's great for GDP statistics.
  Which high performing economy DOESN'T struggle with housing affordability?
  >mostly through immigration
  *SKILLED immigration

  By PorciiVorbesc 43 minutes ago

• The high performing economies that didn't make it illegal to build are high performing because of that.
  This is why the highest standard of living on the planet, with the highest GDP over the largest population... is in Texas.
  The fact the people there aren't pathologically conservative/authoritarian in the "build absolutely nothing anywhere near anything" sense is the precise reason why that is.

  By qball 2 minutes ago

• Per capita GDP is falling with every new migrant. I don't think it's the kind of GDP growth anyone wants to have.

  By jojobas 22 minutes ago

• The current government seems to be quite determined to pretend our British heritage isn't a large and important part of us. I don't understand it.

  By bpbp-mango an hour ago

• As an Australian, I don't think our 'heritage' is of much consequence. Current constituency and overall stability matter more, to me.
  If you mean 'our British heritage' as in, the percentage of the Australian population with British backgrounds, then that counts towards 'current constituency' in my definition.
  This is unfair to the aboriginals, however, and that's a circle I believe is impossible to square.

  By BLKNSLVR 10 minutes ago

• It's because the British heritage involved committing huge crimes against the indigenous folks that we haven't really acknowledged and haven't dealt with. We can't move on until we do. So we're kinda stuck.

  By marcus_holmes 17 minutes ago

• I think it's fairly well acknowledged, but there is no 'dealt with' that fits into any kind of reality I'm familiar with.
  My purely observational understanding is that there are fundamental incompatibilities between aboriginal and 'western/British' culture. "Ownership" of land as probably the primary example. I don't know how that gets 'dealt with'.

  By BLKNSLVR 5 minutes ago

• As yes, I was wondering when my Federal government’s sense of FOMO would compel it to needlessly yap into the void like anybody cares. I see today was the day.

  By avazhi 12 minutes ago

• Hope this means less friction for EU/AU tech companies. Navigating different privacy laws is a pain.

  By kelt_row an hour ago

• Like ordering the submarines from France... again?

  By jojobas 35 minutes ago

• At least there's a chance those ones might actually turn up. They'll still be useless, but at least we'd actually have them.

  By marcus_holmes 15 minutes ago

• Do it. Make it less embarrassing for UK to come back too somehow.

  By dude250711 2 hours ago

• That's a brilliant move by von der Leyen and Mark Carney (I guess he's in on it as well).
  There is currently no such status as "associate member" defined in the EU treates although the idea of special status for not being a complete member was floating around for a while now.
  Just calling it a "unique alliance" or "deepening of their relationship" wouldn't have had such a public effect.
  Half of the right wing influencers on X is going bananas because when the US was "offering" Canada to join them, they said a firm "NO" but for the EU they are opening the door.
  Trump even said when the Canada joins the EU as associate member, it could be considered a hostile act.
  All that for a status nobody knows yet what it will entail. More than a simple trade deal, for sure, but also a lot less than a proper membership.

  By bhaak an hour ago

• While there isn't an official "associate member" status, Norway, Iceland, and Switzerland all have custom deals with the EU so this just codifies what already exists in an ad-hoc form.
  The only bit the EU is rowing back is that they mentioned during BRExit that there would be no more custom deals so this simply a case of the realpolitik winning out.
  I'm sure the UK will be looking at this very carefully as well.

  By spiralpolitik an hour ago

• to be fair until we know what associate member means, there might not be any contradiction to the UK position

  By willsmith72 an hour ago

• There is this Venn diagram[1]. Canada could shift into the Council of Europe like Georgia or join Schengen with an independent currency like the Swiss. The latter would be a nice arrangement for Canadian passport holders.
  [1] https://www.reddit.com/r/europe/comments/1qbq43v/european_in...

  By kevin_thibedeau an hour ago

• Canada doesn't share a land border with any Schengen countries, so I'm not sure how valuable passport-free travel would be - you're already taking a transatlantic flight, it's not like passport control is a huge additional hassle.
  However, I could see a big argument for a labour mobility agreement similar to the NAFTA model, where EU citizens in a long list of professions have the right to work in Canada and vice-versa.

  By Sanzig 18 minutes ago

• Canada is just trying to encourage Europe to invest in Canada which is fine I suppose… all the power to Europeans if they want to invest their money here instead of the US… but I am not holding my breath

  By bethekidyouwant an hour ago

• What money? Their economic growth is half of the US and with strong headwinds. EU GDP is also smaller than the US by far.

  By akarpenko an hour ago

• US GDP is mostly imaginary and not tangible. It's dependent on both international respect for intellectual property laws (reason for the anger toward China), and the natural resources of other lands (that have had their governments blamed by the current administration actively misleading US citizens about provenance of what is needed to sustain American life)
  Intellectual property laws being recognized, US fiat currency, etc. vs. the hard value of natural resources of these other countries (that the US would prefer to try to annex and loot since the former is not a base you can build on)
  When you're deciding on long term trade and economic policy, are you thinking about fabricated valuations of US tech companies, or whether you have energy, minerals, and food supply that have an actual value attached?

  By ocd 13 minutes ago

• You should read more Krugman. There's a whole argument about this.

  By marcus_holmes 14 minutes ago

• handing over control of immigration to brussels - cfmeu will not like it, so it won't happen. they are the govt after all.

  By temp3452 an hour ago

• CFMEU sounded like some EU thing, but it's not, it's Construction, Forestry and Maritime Employees Union (CFMEU), one of Australia's largest blue-collar trade unions.

  By smcin an hour ago

• Nobody in Australia should like it.

  By jojobas 33 minutes ago

• That seems harsh, despite all the hot weather

  By 1attice 7 minutes ago