EC president says ending talks in 2001 possible with enough elbow grease

"There is no reason why [European Union] accession negotiations with Poland should not end this year, provided that Poland can prove that it is able to accept European law, implement it and create required institutions in such a short time," said European Commission (EC) head Romano Prodi yesterday after meeting with Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek. Prodi and EU expansion commissioner Guenter Verheugen praised Poland for the pace of its preparations for EU entry over the past year. Buzek, meanwhile, addressed German and Austrian fears of a huge influx of workers from new EU members. He said that Poland does not expect its citizens to rush en masse to EU countries, as their situation is now much better than it was ten years ago. He pointed out that some 700,000 Poles had returned home in the past few years to take advantage of new economic opportunities, a figure far greater than the number of Poles leaving for the EU. (Rzeczpospolita, p.A1, Reuters) T.J.