Polish News Bulletin

European Union ministers have agreed that the decision on which candidate countries will be cleared for entry in 2004 will be made at next year's October summit of EU leaders to be held in Brussels. Poland has now slipped to last place in terms of negotiation chapters closed among the ten states vying for immediate entry. The statement to the effect that up to ten countries would find themselves in the first wave almost certainly means the exclusion of Bulgaria and Romania. The lack of official confirmation of this generally understood position is said to relate to a French initiative to increase pressure on Poland to complete negotiations by refusing to confirm its likely place in the first wave. The suspicion remains in Brussels that the Polish government continues to view the actual fulfilling of all the entry criteria as a purely formal requirement, which may not be enforced to the letter. To recap, Polish and EU negotiators have now completed talks on only 19 of the 29 required chapters. Spokesmen for the EU's expansion commissioners yesterday admitted that the number of completed chapters will be of "key importance".

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