Energy sector directors see mergers and diversification as the future

The directors of the largest energy producers convened in Warsaw to discuss the prospects of the national energy sector after EU entry. The participants in the event organized by Oracle and the Committee for the European Integra tion (UKiE) agreed that despite 10 years of a free market economy consolida tion has not been well thought out that would have allowed the state to "sa ve millions" and that none of the government energy sector programs had been fully implemented. According to Piotr Kukurba, the deputy-chairman of the E nergy Market Agency, in order to be competitive the sector has to limit its costs, modernize its grid and change its structure. Jan Kurp of the National Grid (PKE) said that energy producers should be allowed to merge, create ho ldings, go beyond their conventional services and start providing access to the Internet, supply water or remove garbage. (Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 22) J.K. PSL makes its support for EU entry conditional upon acceptance of bio-fuels bill On Thursday Jarosaw Kalinowski, the leader of the Polish Peasants Party (PS L) expressed his party's stance on EU entry. "The PSL cannot support the ac cession unless the bio-fuels bill together with the bill on the agricultural structure is accepted, and maximum direct subsidies for the farmers are gua ranteed," said Kalinowski. Representatives of the Democratic Left Alliance (SLD) were taken aback by the statement. They called PSL's move as highly i rresponsible and criticized the party for putting sectoral interests above national ones. "One can be either for the accession or against it," said Ro bert Smolen, the spokesman for the SLD Parliamentary Club. Kalinowski comme nted that the statement was not meant as blackmail. "We just want to protect the interests of Poland," he stressed. (Parkiet, p. 1; Rzeczpospolita, p. A 7; Gazeta Wyborcza, p. 7) K.Z. Kolodko looks to PO for support and says government will not last its full term Finance Minister Grzegorz Kolodko claims he is on a mission impossible to r eform public finances, but if he fails to rally the support of the Cabinet and the moderate opposition, the joke could be on him. He hopes the package requiring changes to 117 laws will find backing in Parliament, where the go vernment only has a minority vote. "This is the time to take it or leave it. In the Sejm we need the support of the Civic Platform (PO)," Kolodko told f oreign journalists on Thursday. Kolodko said in an Internet chat on Thursday that he did not expect Prime Minister Leszek Miller's government to survive its full term ending in 2005. (Reuters) M.M.