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Comment by PaulDavisThe1st | Hacker News Reader

Re: Cyprus, the rule may be being on the same tectonic plate, which AFAICT, Cyprus is (the Eurasian plate).

Canada directly borders France (St. Pierre et Miquelon) so if we ignore dragging in the geologists, that's as good an argument as any.

Canada also directly borders Denmark via Greenland on Hans Island.

Neither Greenland nor St. Pierre et Miquelon are part of the EU (they are “Overseas Countries and Territories”).

So that would also include Dominica, which is also directly bordering France (Martinique).

The French and their globally disconnected departments ...

Martinique is an “Outermost Region” (and so, part of the EU) unlike St. Pierre et Miquelon which is one of the “Overseas Countries and Territories” (not part of the EU).

Are we also considering Brazil for EU membership, then, as the country with the longest land border with France?

(French Guiana is governed by EU regulations, after all...)

There aren't any rules.

Or to be a bit more precise, the rule says any "European state" can join, but there are no set-in-stone definitions of what that actually means.

People here are mentioning Morocco as the example of a country rejected for not being European, but that's not quite accurate: Morocco got rejected from the European Communities in 1987, six years the Maastricht Treaty officially established the EU. Maastricht Treaty specifically put the European Commission in charge of figuring out which countries are considered to be "European", but as far as I know, they never said no to anyone. They did say yes to Cyprus, Georgia and Armenia.

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