With reference to your ad in the ‘Official Journal’…

Date: 12/09/1996

To: Director-General For Recruitment (Nations)

Recruitment (Nations) Directorate

European Commission c/o 200 Rue de la Loi,

Brussels

Belgium

From: First Secretary (Special Projects)

Sunnyside House

Hightechnia

Hightechystan

Dear Sir,

We are writing in reply to your advertisement in the Official Journal promoting the benefits of joining the European Union.

We would like to take advantage of your special admissions programme and you will find enclosed six breakfast cereal packet tops carrying the lucky EU logo and a non-refundable cheque for 45 billion ecu to cover membership forms and post and package.

We understand that we must hurry now to benefit from this once-in-a-lifetime offer, that there is a strictly-unlimited number of places left and that you have no liability in the unlikely event that our application is turned down.

Please be advised that the highest officials in the Hightechystanian Ministry for European affairs, which has just been set up as a mark of deep respect to your organisation, are waiting to start work on the easy-to-complete application forms mentioned in your promotional material.

Yes, we do want to be part of a big, happy, squabble-free democratic family in which clouds never blot out the sun and in which governments live in neighbourly harmony, respecting each other's diversity almost all the time.

We in Hightechystan believe we could make a positive contribution to your family, and of course have already done so in the form of the 45-billion-ecu cheque which you have received with this letter.

We hope this will go some way towards overlooking Hightechystan's somewhat coloured history, although it must be stressed that at each stage in our evolution, our political and moral code was appropriate to the times in which we lived.

It would be unfortunate if hindsight were to cast an unnecessary shadow over periods of rape and pillage, revolution, genocide, dictatorship, Communism, right-wing juntas, left-wing juntas, coups and counter-coups which have helped make our nation what it is today.

As you know, we already have very close trade links with your organisation, which already takes 100&percent; of our annual wicker basket production, and we recently appointed two representatives to the European Union who can be seen operating daily from their pavement vantage points near Rond-Point Schuman. They have already advised us of the hospitality of your family, many of whom have made considerable donations as they passed by.

We are hoping to increase the size of our representation in the very near future and a high-placed task force has been appointed by His Excellency the All-Powerful Ruler of Hightechystan to look into the viability of setting up a fully-fledged begging-bowl operation in strategic locations closer to the Breydel and other Commission buildings.

We believe that in this way we can improve Hightechystan's already-impressive economic performance and achieve the kind of convergence we understand you require if Hightechystan is to be in the first wave of member states moving to a single currency.

This is something we are very keen to do as soon as possible because, as we say in Hightechystan, a single currency is better than no currency at all!

We cannot hide from you the relative poverty in which our citizens are forced to live. His Excellency asked that this not be mentioned, but the enclosed cheque is from his own personal bank account, to avoid any further impoverishment of the national purse!

As you can guess, Hightechystanians have developed a strong sense of humour, which our representatives there tell us is a very important asset in your part of the world, particularly in farming communities at the moment!

Incidentally, His Excellency the All Powerful Ruler of Hightechystan wishes you to know that we have only the most perfect of meat, completely disease-free, because all our animals are fed only human flesh from wrongdoers who have been punished via one of our regular ritual stoning-to-death sessions.

As you can see, we are convinced we can add greatly to your ambitious venture, particularly in the fields of social affairs and mass communications.

His Excellency believes, for instance, that your 48-hour working week is a wonderful idea, which fails only in its detail. Where you say maximum, it should of course be minimum. Also your Social Chapter need considerable tinkering with before it can be made to function properly.

In the mass communications field, His Excellency wonders why there is not one picture of your illustrious leader His Regal Holiness Jacques Santer in the streets, and not one statue in his name? For what focus have your workers at the start of the day's toil, if there is no shrine?

Our officials did find one highly-commendable statue of a leader apparently peeing on the workers, a marvellous piece of symbolism, but they were unable to identify him.

None of the considerable gathering of Japanese tourists around the statue could identify the personage either, which rather defeats the object.

His Excellency was much taken with the pose and is now considering adapting our national image of him, which only shows him frowning down his nose, the better to impress upon the populace their lowly position in life.

We believe that your peeing figure should be that of your President Santer, to improve the esteem in which he is held. And it should not be hidden away, but displayed on all street corners, with pictures in all homes and offices.

But these are details for much later in our relationship, as is the respective role in your society of President Santer and His Excellency the All Powerful Ruler of Hightechystan. We are sure this can be worked out to the satisfaction of all parties.

In the meantime Director-General, we humbly await delivery of your European Union membership application forms and confirm that we are over 18 and that we are part of the European landmass bordered in the east by the Urals - although that could change. (His Excellency does have plans to extend this boundary but we can discuss this when the formalities are out of the way).