"In some senses we would rather be like Norway: in NATO but not the EU," admits Mr Kelam, though he himself champions entry into both bodies.
Gibraltar's generous awards for women have again attracted a star entry led by the reigning world champion, Mariya Muzychuk, and Russia's Alexandra Kosteniuk.
That was promptly followed by the novice hurdler Lady Harriet who won at long odds at Plumpton - it came as no shock to the stable, though - where she lowered the colours of Martin Pipe's talking horse Flying Wanda, the debutante rated highly enough to merit a Champion Hurdle entry.
In more recent decades, we have played our part in tearing down the iron curtain and championing the entry into the EU of those countries that lost so many years to Communism.
Little League announced Wednesday it was realigning its international bracket starting in 2013 to give Australia's national champion an automatic entry into youth baseball's biggest tournament.
Those that champion Turkey's entry into Europe do so in order to encourage the spread of secularism within the Islamic world.
In our history, extremism has already almost led us into the abyss".Mr Chirac's long-standing fascination with non-Western cultures he collects Asian and African artefacts, and set up a new Paris museum devoted to this theme as well as his fear of a clash of civilisations, has made him a champion of Turkish entry into the EU, despite the hostility of his fellow countrymen.
Many of the intellectually audacious advisers he chose, like McGeorge Bundy, ended up championing America's entry into Vietnam.
Although he championed Russia's entry into the World Trade Organization, Putin saw this as a long-denied right, as well as a rite of passage into the "big boys club".
He prefers its policy to the more restrictive United States Open, which cuts off former champions from automatic entry 10 years after they earned their titles - though, with life expectancy surpassing 80 in most developed nations, who can blame the Open?
