Difficult choices

Prime Minister Marek Belka said the onus was now on the British Prime Minister, Tony Blair, who will take on the European Presidency this week, to rescue the budget deal, and that Poland had better reasons to defend the EU's farm aid than its chief beneficiary, France.

"In the West the [EU] aid serves to preserve the status quo in farming, it serves nothing else but maintaining a certain level of wealth," Belka told Gazeta Wyborcza.

"In Poland, this money drives change." he said. (Reuters)