Kołodko's budget limbo

So goes Chubby Checker's classic song "Limbo Rock." Finance Minister Grzegorz Kołodko may find the tune repeating in his head during 2003 as he tries to do a sort of budgetary limbo dance. When dancing the limbo, partygoers must bend backwards and wiggle beneath a stick without falling. The sticks Kołodko will have to wiggle beneath are the demands of economic reality, the demands of financial markets and the demands of the Maastricht Treaty, which the government has announced it will fulfil by 2005.