enith vlooswijk

And this predictably proves to be yet another clusterfuck by the EU: they announce to much fanfare last month that Canada is to become the EU's first "associate member," only to come back weeks later and say "upon reflection, we didn't really think this one through, offer rescinded, our bad" What happened is that the ever-horrendous Von Der Leyen literally improvised the offer into her speech - it wasn't in her prepared remarks (npr.org/2026/09/16/nx-s1-597…) - without consulting member states before, several of which were understandably furious, all the more because the term has no legal meaning. Hard to overstate the sheer level of amateurism: we're used to the EU commission not giving a damn about what European citizens think - that's standard - but skipping the 27 governments is a whole new level. And this is all the more absurd that Von Der Leyen, as per European treaties, has zero business doing foreign policy in the first place. Long story short, the end result, which could be the slogan for the EU as a whole these days, is that nobody's happy and the EU ridiculed itself on the world stage.