Undaunted by the mockery this has prompted from other Caribbean leaders, the newly-elected prime minister of the tiny island-state took his case for accession to French President Jacques Chirac during a recent summit.
The unexpected overtures left many people in Brussels checking
the Republic’s sunshine-hours charts and wondering why such a crucial EU partner – and her neighbours – are not already at the head of the queue for enlargement, instead of the current group of central and eastern European countries where the weather prospects are no brighter than in Belgium.
Unfortunately, fast-track processing of the Dominican Republic’s candidacy has been ruled out by senior sources, who have made it clear that the former British colony will not be leapfrogging Slovenia, Hungary and other EU membership front-runners.
Spoilsports and nit-pickers say this is because: a) it is not in Europe, b) it has debts of almost 96 million euro and c) it has a miserly gross domestic product. Yes, but apart from that…