The European Union has ordered every citizen of its member states to report to a designated queueing point each morning at six o'clock and stand in single file for six hours, facing east, in what officials describe as the most ambitious readiness exercise ever attempted on the continent.
The new timetable, drafted by the European Commission's Directorate-General for Standing in Line, assigns each household a specific stretch of pavement, a numbered position, and a rotation schedule that ensures no European is ever more than four metres from a fellow citizen also facing east. «This is not a drill,» said a Commission spokesperson, calmly adjusting a clipboard. «This is the permanent condition of European preparedness.»
Under the protocol, anyone caught facing west, sitting down, or leaving the queue before the six-hour mark triggers an automatic review by a newly created European Queue Compliance Office, which has already relocated its entire staff to a tent in Brussels and hired three thousand retired traffic wardens to patrol the lines.
NATO has declined to participate, citing a scheduling conflict, though alliance officials confirmed they would observe from a distance and take notes. The Kremlin, for its part, has announced its own counter-queue along the Finnish border, twice as long and facing west, with participants required to bring their own folding chairs.
By next week, the Commission expects the queues to stretch from Lisbon to Tallinn, with Canada and the United Kingdom applying for observer status and Ukraine already standing in line, facing east, waiting for someone to tell it where to stand.