European Union Commissioner: Poland likely among EU entrants in 2003

The European Union (EU)' s enlargement negotiations with those countries most prepared for accession will be finished by 2002, which means that these countries would be able to join the EU by 2003. Gunter Verheugen, the EU enlargement commissioner, in talks with Polish Foreign Minister Wladyslaw Bartoszewski yesterday in Luxembourg, observed that Poland has such enormous potential that it is hard to imagine that it would not be among the candidates accepted in 2003. According to Anna Lindh, the Swedish foreign minister, there should be a turning point in negotiations between Poland and the EU in the first half of next year, when Sweden will assume the revolving EU presidency. (Rzeczpospolita, p1)