Candidates face the stark realities

Suddenly life is getting harder for the countries lining up to join the European Union. Suddenly the other side of joining the EU club - or for that matter any club - has been thrown into stark relief. You know the sort of thing: glossy brochures advertise the sports facilities and boasting about how good the restaurant is. Then you sign up, and you start getting reminders about not diving into the swimming pool and not forgetting to clear away your own coffee cups.
This is the stage where Poland and the rest are at: the promotional material is being replaced by warning notices before they've even been allowed into the clubhouse.
This week the European Commission will produce progress reports on all ten candidate countries, and the message will be explicit: Comply with EU membership requirements or face sanctions.
This is inevitable as we reach the negotiating endgame - the financial handouts, the trade concessions, the agricultural arrangements, all the hard nuts which, as usual in EU dealmaking, are left until the last minute to crack. The newcomers, anxious to have a good story to sell at home, naturally want the best deal they can get.

It's undignified stuff, but the dash for EU cash has emboldened those voices muttering around the Council of Ministers, the Commission and in bars where Euro MPs congregate, that maybe trying to digest 10 new members all at once is too much and wasn't such a good idea in the first place. We can't afford it, say these cynics, and besides, can you imagine how long it will take ministers from 25 member states to negotiate a new directive on insider dealing or harmonize the rules on sausages?
EU farmers are doing their own sums about the impact of Polish agriculture, and everyone is doing the mathematics on how to slice a financial cake 25 ways instead of just 15.
The heretical word "delay" has even been heard in polite political society in Brussels, but that will not happen: the bandwagon is rolling too fast, even though some of the wheel nuts may be working loose.
So the prevailing mood in Brussels is that the present members in the exclusive clubhouse are doing their best to move over and create room for the newcomers - with the proviso, as the Commission will make abundantly clear this weak, that the newcomers must get their act together as well. Be warned, Warsaw.

Geoff Meade is European Union editor of the Press Association.