Overview of negotiations with Poland

Overview of negotiations with Poland

As Poland continues its membership negotiations
with the European Union, right chapters remain open.

Competition policy. This chapter remains open
because of discussions over Poland’s so-called Special Economic
Zones and the restructuring of the steel mill industry. As for the
zones, the European Commission has stated that the state funds that
go into supporting the zones does not fulfill EU standards. The EC
expects Poland to present detailed info on what forms of state
support are being used in the zones.

Fisheries. In this chapter, Poland wants a
five-year transition period that will bar ships that are powered by
engines of 611 kW or stronger and that are longer than 30 meters
from fishing in the Polish Economic Zone on the Baltic Sea. Poland
wants sprat and herring fish to be subject to some kind of market
intervention mechanism, so that prices will not be entirely
determined by the market.

Transportation. Poland is asking for transition
periods for access to railway infrastructure, which it wants to
allow after 1 January 2006, and for access to air transport, which
it wants to allow after 1 January 2006 as well.

Justice and Home Affairs. Questions remain with
regard to how Poland will introduce visas for Russians,
Belarusians, and Ukrainians. Apart from that, the EU would like to
see improvements in the efficiency of the justice system, police,
and the fight against organized crime and drug trafficking. The EU
would also like Poland to modernize its border area
infrastructure.

Agriculture. The European Commission proposal to
offer new member states only 25 percent of the direct payments in
agriculture in their first year of membership, and gradually
increasing sums in subsequent years. In addition, the EC’s
proposals on production quotas are based Poland’s agricultural
production between 1995 and 1999 when the country’s agricultural
production was low. So far, the Polish government has stood firm in
its opposition to the EC’s proposals, saying it wants the subsidies
to reach 100 percent in 2006 and the production quotas to be set at
higher levels. On 14 May, the Polish EU negotiating team met in
Warsaw with representatives of farmers to discuss Poland’s answer
to the EC proposals. The meeting’s results have were not released
to the public.

Poland has also yet to close the particularly
difficult chapters on Regional policy and Financial and Budgetary
Provisions. Planned or foreseen progress. Poland should be able to
close the Transport, Justice and Home Affairs, and the Fisheries
chapters at the 11-12 June negotiation round in Luxembourg. The
discrepancies between the Polish and EU positions on those chapters
are not so large and there should be no major problems in closing
them.

At the 21-22 June EU summit in Seville, Spain,
the EU will make an initial assessment of whether Poland will be
able to complete the negotiations in 2002. The summit will review
the administrative and justice systems to ensure they are ready to
implement EU legislation. Some time between July and October Poland
is likely to attempt a compromise on competition policy chapter,
but the disputes over the special economic zones and the steel
industry are complex and there’s a danger that the chapter may not
be closed.

The 24-25 October EU summit in Brussels during
which the EC will say definitely whether Poland is able to end
negotiations in 2002. At the 12-13 December EU summit in
Copenhagen, the final decision on how many countries will make it
to the EU will be made. At the end of December, the most difficult
chapters should be complete, Agriculture, Regional Policy
(structural funds), and Budget. In terms of budgetary issues,
Poland has asked to be able to phase in its contributions to the
common EU budget over the span of five years. But that proposal has
been rejected by the EU.

A referendum on Poland’s entry into the EU
should come in the fall of 2003. There is a legal controversy here:
if the turnout is greater than 50 per cent, then the referendum
results are valid, but experts cannot agree on what would happen if
the turnout was lower than 50 per cent. In terms of significant
derogations, Poland was able to score a significant victory in its
negotiations of the chapter on the free movement of capital.
Although the Polish government had originally asked for a
transition period that would enable it to bar foreigners from
purchasing agricultural land for 18 years after the country joins
the EU, in the end the EU agreed to a 12-year ban. But this was
still more than the seven-year transition periods that other
candidate countries received in this area. The ban in Poland will
be shortened to seven years for those foreigners from the EU who
are currently leasing land in the western and northern part of the
country (which is land that belonged to Germany before World War
II), and three years for those leasing land in the remainder of the
country.

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