Agriculture Minister challenges changes to EU milk subsidies for Poland

The limits of milk production will be frozen for 12 years and farmers will have to wait until 2013 before they receive the entire amount of new subsidies currently being introduced in the EU. Meanwhile, the amendment to the Accession Treaty proposed by the European Commission have outraged the Polish government. Under the agreement signed in Copenhagen, Polish farmers were promised that they would receive the same amount of financial resources as their EU counterparts. The new proposals infringe earlier regulations. Agriculture Minister Wojciech Olejniczak has already announced that he would discuss the issue with EU Agriculture Commissioner Franz Fischler. Agriculture Ministry experts claim that if necessity arises, Poland might sue the Commission in the European Justice Tribunal. The EU intends to approve the European Commission's proposals without consulting it with Poland. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A1) A.K.