Agriculture ministry to pay back euro 3mln in EU Phare funds, not euro 30 mln

Petra Erler, adviser to Gunter Verheugen the EU accession commissioner, has refuted earlier reports in the daily Rzeczpospolita that Gunter Verheugen would demand back from Agriculture Minister Jaroslaw Kalinowski euro 30 million of the EU Phare funds earmarked for the construction of IACS, the system for handling the distribution of EU support funds for the domestic agriculture sector. She announced that the figure was euro 3 million and not euro 30 million. EU auditors have found evidence that strict EU rules and procedures were broken when the IACS contract was signed with Agro-Comp in 1998. Gazeta Wyborcza's sources in Brussels did not want to speculate over whether this scandal will affect Poland's negotiations with the EU or whether it could postpone Poland's entry into the Union. According to these sources, it is up to Polish representatives "to find a solution which will avoid any delays." (Gazeta Wyborcza, p.27) A.K.