Brussels brush off Polish maneuvers to reopen EU Accession Treaty

The EU refused on Tuesday to renegotiate the settlements of the Accession Treaty, which according to the government are inconsistent with what was negotiated in Copenhagen. The government must approve the final version of the document by Friday, so that the date of EU's expansion can be met. Danuta Huebner, the Minister for European Affairs and Jan Truszczynski, the chief negotiator flew to Brussels yesterday in order to discuss the controversial points of the treaty. However, the Commissioner for EU Expansion, Guenter Verheugen and the Commissioner for Agriculture Franz Fischler, declined to meet the envoys. A few days earlier, Prime Minister Miller addressed a letter to the Commissioners with a request to appease concerns mounting over the substantive content of the Treaty. "The accession negotiations were finalized in Copenhagen. Reopening them is impossible. The EC can only supply technical explanations of the settlements," said Petra Erler, a member of the Commissioner's Council. (Rzeczpospolita, B1) A.C.