Colombia to join EU

Troubled country keen to adopt Euro

by Geoff Pattison

As dozens of impoverished countries scramble to get on the EU subsidy gravy train, it has been announced that Colombia is the latest entrant to be accepted. It will join in 2003.

Speaking from a £15,000 a-night hotel suite near his Swiss bank, an EC spokesman defended the decision, saying that Colombia was well qualified to join, and met all the economic criteria. "Take their human rights record," he said. "It may not be as good as Turkey's but it's a lot better than Britain's. Nobody in Britain's got any rights at all unless they're an illegal immigrant or a member of the Labour party. And Colombia's very keen to be a member of the single currency — although most money transfers will admittedly be by suitcase."

"Then there are the excellent border controls," he added. "There'll be nobody sneaking into Britain from Colombia's internment camps like there is from France. Oh no."

Colombia's President Alvaro Uribe seemed in favour of the idea, but his exact words could not be heard through the glass of his bullet-proof car. The spokesman for international affairs, Franco Uribe, a relation, proclaimed this a great day for Colombia and for the EU.

"Products from my country will be so much easier to sell to Europe after this," he laughed, "and there'll be no need for customs to examine any of our shipments. The subsidies will help our farms become more profitable and payments in Euros will be so much more convenient. Of course, we will not import British beef, but then neither will anyone else."

British supremo Antonio Blah, speaking from anywhere he can get near a microphone, said that this was "good for Britain, good for British jobs", and proved that the New Deal and the Third Way were not just soundbites. "The bigger the EU is," he said, "the more powerful its leaders will be and the more they will get paid, and that can only be good. I'm just an ordinary guy, but even ordinary guys can get top jobs in Europe, you know."

Neil Durden Smith for the Tory party said that the move could only lead to more stealth taxes, and Charles Canaday for the Lib Dems said nothing at all worth hearing.

Zimbabwe's application to join is expected to be fast-tracked to commence in 2004.