.eu Domains to Go on Sale in a Month

conJunk writes "The BBC is running an article about the start of .eu TLD sales. From the article: 'The .eu domain was launched in December and opens to the public in four weeks. Trademark holders have had a 'sunrise period' since December to register their own trademarks... and all EU institutions will begin using the .eu domain in their web addresses from April next year.' Winners and Losers? Volkswagen scooped Ralph-Lauren for polo.eu by three and a half minutes." Update: 03/10 15:32 GMT by Z : Volvo != Volkswagen.

Comments

Anyone else thinking?

[Zebadias]

But what about the Mints?!

Possibly called lifesavers in USA

Re:Anyone else thinking?

[TennisUK]

I wasn't aware Volvo, as well as Volkswagen, marketed a car called a Polo?

Volvo Polo

[defsdoor]

Is that for the Volvo Polo then ? (perhaps you meant Volkswagen - the article seems to thing so)

Re:Volvo Polo

[kimba]

Is that for the Volvo Polo then ? (perhaps you meant Volkswagen - the article seems to thing so)

Swedish car.. German car... Both start with a V and come form that Europe place, so close enough for the submitter!

Re:Volvo Polo

[AKAImBatman]

Well, it's not entirely Swedish at this point. It blew my mind when Ford ran a commercial that stated that they were "using their Volvo brand to innovate in exciting new ways." I looked it up, and sure enough. Ford bought out Volvo in 1999.

Re:Volvo Polo

[Anonymous Coward]

Um buddy-
Did you know GM owns Saab? Did you know Ford owns Land Rover? And ford owns Jaguar? The list goes on forever. Seriously dude. Get a clue.

Re:Volvo Polo

[Anonymous Coward]

BTW, it's SAAB, not Saab. Short for Svenska Aeroplan AB (Swedish Aeroplane Corp.).

Re:Volvo Polo

[zxnos]

just go to the website to see who they own...

Re:Volvo Polo

[Anonymous Coward]

Who wasted a point modding up this tripe?

Dibs on bl

[gEvil (beta)]

I should have sacre.bl.eu up shortly. Other subdomains will be available for low, low rates. Surprisingly, EURid says that it's actually still available...

Re:Dibs on bl

[liquidsin]

dibs on peup.eu

Re:Dibs on bl

[digitaldc]

Great minds think alike, you beat me to it :)

Re:Dibs on bl

[Flaming Babies]

Anyone claim gérard.depardi.eu yet?
If not...it's mine.

Re:Dibs on bl

[nsmike]

I'll take pepel.ep.eu

Re:Dibs on bl

[osarusan]

As long as I can get chickencordon.bl.eu

Re:Dibs on bl

[donaldlatif]

It's funny that Americans think that French people actually say "Sacre Bleu!" I lived in Montpellier, France last year with my girlfriend who taught English. She said "sacre bleu!" to a classroom full of 4th-graders, and they gave her the Big Blank Stare. After some polling of our French friends, we discovered that nobody, at least, nobody in Montpellier, had ever heard of that phrase. Except the Americans. They all thought it was pretty funny. So I hope the site is in English, because it probably won't get a lot of French visitors.

Re:Dibs on bl

[Grant_Watson]

I read that it was kind of old-fashioned; it's a way of avoiding "sacre Dieu" or "holy God."

The French, having a rather different approach to God than they once did, probably don't mind saying the latter so much any more, if they even use *that* expression. (I don't speak French, so the previous sentance is just a wild guess-- but a pretty reasonable one.)

Time to grab...

[mustafap]

All those french words end in eu.

Thats going to be a real Cadeau to some people.

Re:Time to grab...

[wild_berry]

I doubt it's that great a gift -- parce-que le mot 'cadeau' ne termine pas par les lettres 'e' et 'u'.

Re:Time to grab...

[mustafap]

Duh. Got a case of word blindness there :o(

Re:Time to grab...

[Anonymous Coward]

To Australians with love...

Re:Time to grab...

[caffeination]

It'd be pretty good in Portuguese too - eu is Portuguese for I - but for the fact that it's hard to stick the word I on the end of a phrase. Some creative subdirectories mixed with a cleverly put subdomain might be able to create something cool though.

Re:Time to grab...

[Leon_Trotsky]

All those french words end in eu. Like Cadeau?

You ends in eu.
are ends in eu.
an ends in eu.
idiot ends in eu.

Re:Time to grab...

[nfk]

Not that hard... ca.estou.eu la.vou.eu aqui.mando.eu

Re:Time to grab...

[dapyx]

In Romanian, it means "I", too and it is possible to stick it at the end of a phrase, if you want to put an emphasis on that "I". :-)

Re:Time to grab...

[Eccles]

Yes, you want the African Union, not the European Union. Although African Unions are non-migratory.

You have to know these things when you're a king, you know.

Re:Time to grab...

[TrentTheWiseA]

Fine, so what's your favorite color then??

Re:Time to grab...

[mustafap]

screw.eu

god, the possibilities are endless.

Re:Time to grab...

[voice_of_all_reason]

French? More like p.eu!

Re:Time to grab...

[conJunk]

fair enough... try cad.insert-the-letter-a-into-the-next-bit.eu

I can see the French trying to claim the domain...

[digitaldc]

SacreBl.eu !

Why would Volvo want polo?

[otis wildflower]

Since Volkswagen manufactures and sells the Polo, not Volvo..

Oh wait, TFA is correct.

Not like I should talk tho, linklexic that I am...

(ps: mondi.eu dibs!!)

organisation?

[Midnight Thunder]

Will everything be straight under .eu, or will there be some notion of categorisation, such as .com.eu, .edu.eu, .gov.eu, etc?

Re:organisation?

[hcdejong]

Given the polo.eu example in TFBlurb, I don't think we'll see categorisation. Pity, really.

Re:organisation?

[timster]

I find the categorization in DNS to be about as useful as the "Subject" header on emails I send to my mom.

It's just not possible on today's Internet to meaningfully separate domains into a handful of arbitrary categories. Useful organization will require a new system; for most people, that system is Google.

Re:organisation?

[Conanymous Award]

While we're at it, can you explain to me why there are no www.domain.uk URLs? Every British URL ends in co.uk. Same in Japan (co.jp). The explanation is prolly damn simple, but I've never encountered it (and maybe I'm too lazy to google it up).

Re:organisation?

[Breakfast Pants]

What I don't get is that if they don't go on sale for a month, why was anyone allowed to scoop up "polo" early? The word isn't trademarkable and I thought the sunrise period was just for trademarks.

Re:organisation?

[slavemowgli]

...which is why things generic top-level domains are frowned upon and why the existing ones are slowly gotten rid of and no new ones are being introduced, right?

Re:organisation?

[jacksonj04]

NomiNET (The .UK registrars) are actually strict about some of the domains. .gov.uk, .edu.uk, .mil.uk and .ac.uk are all quite tightly controlled. .org.uk and .co.uk are fairly open.

Re:organisation?

[TotoLeFoobar]

Um, no. The .uk, for example, have "*.police.uk", such as cityoflondon.police.uk (unfortunately, not that intuitive, since london.police.uk does not even exist). They also have gov.uk, org.uk, ac.uk, etc.

Domains with .co.uk are very useful for Google searches. Such as "fookeyword -site:co.uk". Or search all academic institutions: "foo site:ac.uk".

Also, by having different subdomains, you can charge different prices for them. org.TLD should be cheaper than co.TLD. Afaik, it's like that with the .yu TLD, as long as you provide proof that you are a not-for-profit organisation (something which is reasonable to do for a CC TLD, since many of them ask for trademark and various registration documents anyway).

Re:organisation?

[susano_otter]

Will everything be straight under .eu, or will there be some notion of categorisation, such as .com.eu, .edu.eu, .gov.eu, etc

More to the point: How is this an "online rights" issue?

Re:organisation?

[timster]

No, that's because the system is being run by committee, and thus the changes implemented are by nature of the process completely pointless.

Re:organisation?

[redalien]

It is pretty damn simple, some organisations decided to sell third level domains, some second level. This allows the same name to be used in different contexts. The .uk options that I know of are:

.co.uk COmmercial .org.uk ORGanisation .me.uk Personal site (clever name, eh?) .plc.uk Public Limited Company .ltd.uk LimiTeD liability Company .mod.uk Ministry Of Defense (Includes all armed forces) .police.uk Police, obviously .gov.uk Government .ac.uk ACademic institutions .sch.uk SCHool (this one is broken down more to schoolname.localeducationauthority.sch.uk, so my secondary school was barrbeacon.walsall.sch.uk) .nhs.uk National Health Service Why shouldn't there be a logical distinction between the hospitals in Birmingham and the government in Birmingham? It just makes sense to me, you wouldn't want birmingham-council.uk, birmingham-nhs.uk, as you wouldn't have a restrictive pattern to ensure uniformity. I once surprised somebody by going to a police website without googling...

"How did you know the URL?"
"Err.. it's the name of the force, followed by .police.uk..."

Re:organisation?

[richlv]

there are two sunrise periods.

http://www.eurodns.com/preregister/eusunrise_2.php

Re:organisation?

[DarkIye]

(unfortunately, not that intuitive, since london.police.uk does not even exist)

Not the only one, apparently - a quick lookup shows that metropolitan.police.uk doesn't exist, either, it's met.police.uk. Odd.

Re:organisation?

[Fred_A]

Well, it's online, right ?

(runs away)

Re:organisation?

[1u3hr]

Will everything be straight under .eu

Not if I can get gay.eu.

Re:organisation?

[backwardMechanic]

I rather like being able to search .ac.uk, and only hitting academic sites. Searching .gov.uk is quite handy to. And to all those folks out there who don't get it, if you're a shop in the UK, selling mainly to the UK, please use .co.uk. If I'm looking for bicyle parts, for example, I usually limit my googling to .co.uk. The internet might not care about geography, but the postman does.

Re:organisation?

[955301]

Geography was the only really useful structure I ever saw out of the DNS system. It certainly would have made Google's life easier for google.local to have law.redmond.wa.us instead of lawyersofgreaterwashington.com.

Think if you could set your browser to a certain locality and automatically reduce name completion for the address to your city.

Re:organisation?

[Varitek]

Interestingly, there's also parliament.uk. At first it seems strange that it's not parliament.gov.uk, but in the UK system, it's Government that is subservient to Parliament, and therefore parliament.gov.uk would give out quite the wrong idea.

There are also a few holdouts from before the .uk domain was rationalised - bl.uk, for example, is the British Library.

Re:organisation?

[955301]

2 reasons: Because these domains are more organized than ours and categorize entities in those countries as subdomains of those countries. The .co distinguishes a company from a government entity. www.hse.gov.uk, northumbria.ac.uk, etc.

2nd, co.us is Colorado. We would have probably ended up with com.us endings had this caught on.

Re:organisation?

[Anonymous Coward]

At least the government is SUPPOSED to be subservient to Parliament, but President Blair treats it with contempt / ignores it whenever possible.

Re:organisation?

[petermgreen]

it comes down to the policies of whoever manages that countries TLD. some alocate directy under it, some only give under subdivisions, some allow both.

Staggered registrations

[Rob T Firefly]

From TFA:

Trademark holders have had a "sunrise period" since December to register their own trademarks.

Public bodies and some other rights holders were allowed to apply in the initial phase.

The names are given out on a first-come-first-serve basis to applicants who then have 40 days to provide proof they hold a trademark in that name.

I really have to commend the powers that be on this staggered-registration scheme. It's enough to placate the valid trademark holders while cutting down chances of companies who missed out suing whoever gets it after the fact, and I hope the folks in charge of future TLD releases take note of this.

Re:Staggered registrations

[deathcloset]

in li.eu of this sunrise period you speak of, would sex.eu be spoken for already by some entity?

I ask, because there will no doubt be a huge rush at that domain.

I wonder, how would one even get that domain registered? Will someone with "connections" have the better chance?

Re:Staggered registrations

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, it's almost as if they acknowledge that there is no "invisible hand of the free market" to keep things in line for them...

Re:Staggered registrations

[Elixon]

"40 days to provide proof" :-)
I was VERY surprised when I was applying to my .eu domain. The proof is simply any paper you can print on your personal printer. It does not need to be validated, approved... nothing like this. If you go to any national trademark authority's web pages and you hit PRINT in your browser - then you have a PROOF.

I found it when packing the proof and checking the condition terms. I had OFFICIAL declaration of ownership issued by state authority which means that it is a "public document" in our country. Such as document is protected by our law. You cannot write on it, alter it, fake it,... When checking the conditions I found out that there was said I'm supposed to put my signature on every page of the proof. I thought if I'll do that than I commit the crime! I contacted our domain registrar and they replied that I should scan it, print it on my printer and then sign it. I was told to do not send original papers because if I sent more papers or less papers or papers with clip on it - they can cancel my registration!

I didn't get the point. Why should I sent the printed web page. Does the PWC have no Internet connection? This is what I call bureaucracy.

And 40 days period?
My domain:
Applied: 09/01/2006
Documents received: 19/01/2006
Deadline ADR (procedure against decision can be initiated before): 18/4/2006

So I applied in January and I cannot use the domain until April. Bureaucracy is slower then 40 days...

Re:Staggered registrations

[Rob T Firefly]

I would guess that the requirement of even a copy of your proof is meant to be something that the registrar can keep on file as your evidence of claim, therefore ensuring the burden of proof is not on the registrar themselves. That way, if you use something you made up yourself in Word and some company who actually owns it challenges your claim, it's between you and that company to prove it and you'll lose that fight without a real document.

Re:Staggered registrations

[FireFury03]

in li.eu of this sunrise period you speak of, would sex.eu be spoken for already by some entity?

http://www.theregister.co.uk/2005/12/13/church_bid _on_sex/

And no, I have no idea how someone can apply for sex.eu in the sunrise period

frack.eu

[Anonymous Coward]

I've got faq.eu and frack.eu lined up in my sights. ;)

Why bother?

[hcdejong]

The only organisation for which the .eu domain makes sense is the European Union (government). Other organisations, both commercial and nonprofit tend to be either national or worldwide.
I suspect many .eu domains will end up being redirected to existing .com websites, with large companies buying YA domain name just to prevent domain squatters etc.

Re:Why bother?

[Zzeep]

You might be mistaken. Europe is real! I think alot of companies see this as a good way to strengthen their european presence. It is now yet again a little bit easier for, say, a Belgian company to trade with customers all over Europe.

Re:Why bother?

[Rich0]

The polo.eu example only serves to underscore this. Why do we need new TLDs? The typical answer to this is that we're out of easy-to-type domain names. So, what do we do - we charge a million domain-holders $10 each to replicate the .com domain to the .eu domain. How exactly does this solve the problem? The only thing that would make sense would be to disqualify anybody from holding the same address in more than one TLD. The main objection to this is due to squatters leveraging typing errors or the confusion over com/net/org/whatever. Well, if that is the real problem then the fix is very simple - just restrict everything to a single domain and then you don't have volvo.com, volvo.org, and volvo.net...

The real purpose of new TLDs is to drum up revenue for registrars...

Re:Why bother?

[hcdejong]

Europe might be real, but that doesn't mean people are going to look at companies as being "European". I know of exactly two exceptions: EADS and Airbus. Both have .com domains registered.

Companies that operate internationally often already have a .com domain. If I want to know more about Volvo, for instance, I either go to volvo.com (expecting to find the Volvo Worldwide site) or volvo.[country] to find out about their national distributor. Volvo.eu I'd never bother entering as an URL.

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

The amusing thing is that Airbus is part of EADS. So there is really only one.

Re:Why bother?

[Anonymous Coward]

How is .eu any "easier" or more useful than .be or .com? Very few companies limit their business to Europe alone. They're either national or international businesses.

It might make sense for the website of the European HQ in those cases where the organisation is set up like that.

Re:Dibs

[zoney_ie]

Well, French Connection will probably *actually* register http://fcuk.eu/

Confused???

[Anonymous Coward]

Volkswagen -> Car maker (one of it's cars is named Polo, it's like a slimed down Golf in the hatchback version)

Volvo -> Another make (Line includes S40, S60, S80, etc.)

You gringos should know this!!!

org.eu ...

[Anonymous Coward]

... just to screw with your head.

Re:But what domain will the EU use?

[bitt3n]

I expect all traffic from the US government will be forwarded to screw.eu

Re:Dibs

[DistantShadow]

and i just spent my last moderator point...damn it.

funniest post i've read on /. in a long time.

-ds

Common Words Ending With eu

[michaelaiello]

1. emeu
2. eu
3. adieu
4. aeu
5. basbleu
6. beaulieu
7. bleu
8. boutefeu
9. calcasieu
10. camaieu
11. ceu
12. chisleu
13. feu
14. heu
15. jussieu
16. leu
17. lieu
18. meu
19. milieu
20. montesquieu
21. neu
22. pareu
23. pourlieu
24. priedieu
25. purlieu
26. reu
27. richelieu
28. seu
29. teu
30. virgalieu
31. weu
32. xeu

behold the power of grep.

Re:Common Words Ending With eu

[Cheapy]

"Common"?

Re:Common Words Ending With eu

[klenwell]

has anyone pounced on pepelep.eu?

jonfavre.au? I guess that's Australian. (Or is it Austrian?)

Re:Common Words Ending With eu

[Expert Determination]

33. Pepe le Peu

Re:Common Words Ending With eu

[Anonymous Coward]

32. xeu

I say xeu everyday!

OK, maybe I read the entire dictionary everyday.

Hmm

[ajs318]

ajs318@marijuana $ whois di.eu
% .eu Whois Server 1.0
%
% (c) 2005 (http://www.eurid.eu/
%
% The WHOIS service offered by EURid and the access to the records
% in the EURid WHOIS database are provided for information purposes
% only. It allows persons to check whether a specific domain name
% is still available or not and to obtain information related to
% the registration records of existing domain names.
%
% EURid cannot, under any circumstances, be held liable in case the
% stored information would prove to be wrong, incomplete or not
% accurate in any sense.
%
% By submitting a query you agree not to use the information made
% available to:
%
% - allow, enable or otherwise support the transmission of unsolicited,
% commercial advertising or other solicitations whether via email or
% otherwise;
% - target advertising in any possible way;
%
% - to cause nuisance in any possible way to the registrants by sending
% (whether by automated, electronic processes capable of enabling
% high volumes or other possible means) messages to them.
%
% Without prejudice to the above, it is explicitly forbidden to extract,
% copy and/or use or re-utilise in any form and by any means
% (electronically or not) the whole or a quantitatively or qualitatively
% substantial part of the contents of the WHOIS database without prior
% and explicit permission by EURid, nor in any attempt hereof, to apply
% automated, electronic processes to EURid (or its systems).
%
% You agree that any reproduction and/or transmission of data for
% commercial purposes will always be considered as the extraction of a
% substantial part of the content of the WHOIS database.
%
% By submitting the query you agree to abide by this policy and accept
% that EURid can take measures to limit the use of its WHOIS services
% in order to protect the privacy of its registrants or the integrity
% of the database.
% % WHOIS di
Domain: di
Status: APPLICATION PENDING

Looks like that one's probably going to be taken, then.

Re:Hmm

[Jon Chatow]

Damn. I really wanted the email address mon@di.eu!

Re:Dibs

[Tibor the Hun]

hmm, upon closer inspection, your link appears to be dead.
I get a big fcuk.eu message.

Common?

[Errandboy of Doom]

Boutefeu: 177k google hits.

Calcasieu: A river you've never seen in Louisiana.

Most of these words have French origins. So, sadly, the French will benefit the most from domain name punning. Maybe phonetics would be better for us anglophiles:

theproudandthef.eu
wattsamatta.eu
p.eu

Other ideas? We must not lose an inch in the interlingual contest for stupidest web naming memes!

How much did Saddam pay for france.eu?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hell, he got germany.eu in the deal, too.

That Oil-for-Food money was good for something kinda useful, I guess.

grep 'eu$' /usr/share/dict/words

[Nathan Cassano]

adieu
lieu
Mathieu

Well this sucks!

microsoft.eu

[liliafan]

Hmmmm I wonder if they will buy it? Or perhaps even better screwedbythe.eu

eh

[Anonymous Coward]

forget the .eu domains, I want mer.de!

Getting a couple .eu

[britneysimpson]

Going to pick me up a few I wonder who got computer.eu should be interesting to see what is left when the bidding goes public!

Re:Dibs

[Anonymous Coward]

They've actually applied for it. Check at whois.eu yourself.

It's Go! Go! for Dancing!

[not_an_otter]

www.SentientMili.eu

Registering .EU takes 100 days in my case

[Elixon]

I understand it but what I don't is why it took them exactly 50 days to validate the application - to review my submitted documents. Why? How can they validate the submitted documents printed on my home printer from who-know what source? Probably by checking the on-line databases. There is no other way. Could not they do that before automaticly? They could ask me to fill the link pointing directly to the national database... or they could create a robot to do it it is not so difficult...

Yesterday they accepted my application after 50 days from the date they recieved the documents and 60 days after I applied for the domain. Now I have 40 days long period for ADR before I can use my domain => 60 + 40 = it will take 100 days to register my .EU domain.

As the customer I'm not satisfied with the speed of the service.

.cat: when did that appear?

[adnonsense]

Slightly off-topic (but only slightly, it's European): has anyone noticed the emergence of the .cat tld? As in barcelona.cat?

(I'd call dibs on cool.cat but I can't find any registrar offering it).

Re:.cat: when did that appear?

[paol]

Well, .cat obviously stands for Catalunya. I wonder how they got a TLD. Last time I looked Catalunya wasn't a country.

Anyway, the organization in charge of the domain is here: http://www.puntcat.org/

And cool.cat appears to be available :)

Re:.cat: when did that appear?

[gronofer]

This surprises me. I wonder how other successionist areas are doing in getting their own top level domains. There's no sign of .kurdistan or .quebec.

Note the odd claim in the Wikipedia article about .cat:

ICANN has expressly prohibited the use of the .cat domain for pages about cats, unless they are written in Catalan or concerning Catalan culture.

Re:.cat: when did that appear?

[Anonymous Coward]

Last time I looked Catalunya wasn't a country.

Shhh! You'll upset the Catalonians, and then we'll have another Spanish Civil War on our hands...

Re:.cat: when did that appear?

[Ned_Network]

And cool.cat appears to be available :)

I find http://www.puntcat.cat/ more informative. It looks to me like http://www.puntcat.org/ was the site used to campaign for the establishment of the TLD, http://www.puntcat.cat/ is for registrations.

Unfortunately the sunrise period (until the 21st April, I think) has three stages and the last one is for any one of 68,000 people who supported the establishment of the domain (I guess those who signed a petition, or something).

Cool.cat may well have gone by April the 22nd, but on that morning I guess you might want to try:

$ for foo in `grep -h cat$ /usr/share/dict/words` ; do whois "${foo%cat}.cat" ; done | grep "NOT FOUND"

Re:.cat: when did that appear?

[Ned_Network]

Note the odd claim in the Wikipedia article about .cat:
ICANN has expressly prohibited the use of the .cat domain for pages about cats, unless they are written in Catalan or concerning Catalan culture.

No, apparently they've prohibited the use of the .cat domain for pages about ANYTHING unless they are written in Catalan or concerning Catalan culture.

From http://www.puntcat.cat/en_faq.html#p10

unlike [.com or .org], .cat has a more restricted personality as it is addressed to the Catalan linguistic and cultural community in the Internet. And Fundació puntCAT has an ICANN's contractual duty to verify that all domains are related to this community.

The website goes on to explain how you don't need to write in Catalan to get a .cat domain but that if you do, no other checks will be required. Presumably if you don't write in Catalan then they'll phone up your Mom & ask if you've ever been to Andorra, but I stopped reading after I realised I wouldn't be allowed wet-pussy.cat

Are you kidding?

[tacokill]

Dude, it's Europe. Get used to it. For all of my life, everytime I have to deal with Europe or European companies -- I re-learn the fact that my concept of "time" is not the same as theirs. Just try to get ANYTHING done in August or September and you will get a first hand lesson too (Europe goes on vacation during those months)

Sucks that it has to be that way and I am certain they are not alone but it is what it is.

What takes 2 weeks here in America, often takes 2 months when you go abroad. I am not smart enough to know WHY that is but one thing is for sure: it has been a consistent problem for my entire adult life. And I don't think it's going to change.


(note: for those that think I am bashing -- I'm not. I am simply stating an observation that is obvious to many Americans such as myself. You can debate the differences in culture on your own time.)

You need a valid EU address, or else....

[BarnabyWilde]

... no .EU domain name for you, bucko.

TROOOLL aLERT MOD PARENT DOWN!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

It's spelled "Saab" on saab.com

eliminate the others

[r00t]

Move *.uk to *.uk.eu and so on. (for all EU states: fr, de, pl, no...)

While we're at it, it's no fair for the EU to get more than one vote in the UN. It seems the EU likes to be a country only when the circumstances suit them.

I know what I'll be reserving...

[mattbrundage]

http://bl.eu/cheese