#28thnever51st
All countries associated with the European Broacast Union can participate.
Brazil, Peru, Japan, India, and even China and the US could participate too.
Russia and Lybia used to be part of the EBU but they were suspended. They know what they did.
All countries associated with the European Broacast Union can participate.
Theoretically yes, but associated members (in contrast to full members) still need to be approved on a case by case basis.
Active members (as opposed to associate members) of the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) are eligible to participate; […]. Associate member broadcasters may be eligible to compete, dependent on approval by the contest’s reference group.[49]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurovision_Song_Contest#Participation
Eurovision is organised by the European Broadcasting Union, which includes basically all countries in the European Broadcasting Area (basically Europe + all of the Mediterranean). Those include Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Israel, Armenia, etc. They have always been allowed to participate. Australia is an outlier. They just got a special invitation.
I’m not sure why I keep seeing this posted, like it’s some sort of gotcha. It doesn’t mean our other elections would have to change, just the brand new representatives to the EU.
The vote for liberal leadership used Preferential Voting where you could indicate more than one preference.
Because it’s a step towards proportional representation. It would expose much more of the populace to how it’s done. Hopefully getting more people used to the idea of it.
It’s not about being a “gotcha” - it’s about demonstrating a pathway to better democratic representation.
You’re right that EU membership would only require PR for European Parliament representatives initially. However, this would create several significant opportunities:
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Practical demonstration: Canadians would experience firsthand how an electoral system that ensures every vote counts actually works, rather than just hearing theoretical arguments.
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Institutional precedent: Once PR is successfully implemented for one electoral body, the argument that it’s “too complex” or “un-Canadian” becomes much harder to maintain.
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Democratic legitimacy gap: Having representatives to the EU Parliament elected through PR while our own MPs are chosen through FPTP would create an obvious legitimacy contrast that would be difficult to justify.
The Liberal leadership vote using preferential voting actually supports this point. Internal party processes already recognize the limitations of FPTP - they just don’t extend those same democratic principles to the general electorate. In fact, all parties, even the Conservatives, use superior electoral systems to FPTP.
The reality is that 76% of Canadians support electoral reform according to recent polling, but our major parties benefit from maintaining a system that systematically discards votes. Exposure to functioning PR would make the democratic deficit in our current system increasingly apparent.
I get what you are saying, but the UK joined the EU with FPTP voting and left the EU because of FPTP. So while I agree that exposure might change things I do doubt it.
A lot of people don’t get it until they see it in action.
My union recently had a vote about increasing health benefits. “No” won in one of the categories because there were 3 options for how much to increase it by. (Yes won by 76% while the no beat the top yes 24% to 23%)
I pointed this out at the next meeting and we had a vote and struck the no vote. Later a bunch of people said thanks for pointing that out, and my reply was “no sweat, we have the same problem with our elections.”
Then everyone applauded and Einstein gave me a piece of π. Just kidding, it was more like weird looks and a couple agreements, but I like to think I brought the issue to a few people’s attention.
There would be voting changes , I believe, something about EU membership requiring a certain type of voting system. Eg. Not FPP
Hungary’s system is half proportional, half FPP on steroids, but it’s just as bad as FPP since our FPP lets the winner not just take the seat, but also extra votes into the proportional part of the race.
So, no, the EU is fine with everything, the only thing is that EU citizens have to be able to vote in local elections wherever we live, regardless of citizenship. That means if you join, and I rent a place in Toronto and move in, I get a vote for the Toronto mayor on day one.
As a European, I think it would be pretty funny if, after Brexit, the other parts of the former Empire joined the EU.
But at least right now, membership is probably more of a meme - some solid cooperation and shared institutions would be amazing, though.
EU already said this can’t work. It said in the rules only European countries can join the EU. But something can be worked out, no doubt.
Or France becomes a Canadian one and switch to English as the primary official language. It would solve a ton of issues and I’m sure the French would be okay with it.
You have to be “substantially European”, which includes Cyprus, which is fully in Asia and half Turkish. Also, Greenland and to a degree Iceland aren’t geographically European.
Membership of the European Economic Area - same as Norway - for example.
Comes with being part of the EU Internal Market, Freedom Of Movement (both ways, of course) and exceptions in a couple of areas (such as fishing rights not being decided by the EU, which I suspect is something that Canada would rather have) but without voting power within the EU.
I (from yrp) would absolutely love this <3
