Failures in agriculture tops critical report of Poland's readiness to join the EU

The European Commission yesterday officially published its report outlining the state of readiness of candidate countries which are to join the European Union in May next year. "Poland has achieved a high level of adaptation to EU norms in most of the fields, however, the lack of readiness in the agriculture sector might lead to a cut in the EU subsidies and restrictions on food exports," announced the Commission. The report also called on the government to continue with economic reforms, which according to the European Commission, were halted last year. The Commission has pointed out nine fields in which Poland lags behind, preparing the IACS system, ways of calculating EU subsidies for individual farmers, as well as the need for meat, milk, and fish processing companies to prepare foods to EU norms. "Without immediate and decisive actions it is very likely that these countries will not be able to fulfill all EU responsibilities and therefore their citizens and businesses will not be able to make full use of EU membership," reads the report. (Rzeczpospolita, p. A1) A.K.