Bartoszewski hopes accession talks will accelerate with Sweden at EU helm

Poland hopes to speed up its European Union (EU) accession negotiations when Sweden assumes the EU presidency in January after slow progress during France's half-year tenure, Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski said on Wednesday. Poland has so far closed 13 of 29 negotiation chapters, but only two of them during the last six months. Poland aims to close the next 11 chapters during Sweden's leadership, according to Bartoszewski. "Poland wants to close the whole negotiating process by the end of 2001 an d enter the Union in the first wave of enlargement in 2003," he said, an ambition EU diplomats see as unrealistic. Bartoszewski said the chapters Poland wants to conclude in the first half of 2001 include customs and free trade in goods. (Reuters) M.K.