NBP or BRE Bank to process EU funds?

After Poland joins the European Union, funds that are expected to amount to around zł. 59 billion by 2006 will begin to flow into the country and will have to be managed by a bank which is to be chosen through a tender. The European Commission is obliged to open a bank account in each EU member country. Up to today, the Commission has so far only received one binding offer, which is from BRE Bank. "The European Commission does not guarantee the amount of funds which will flow into the account. This depends on the candidate country," said Jarosław Fordoński, an adviser in the sales and trading transactions department of BRE Bank. However, representatives of the Finance Ministry seem surprised by this news. "From earlier agreements we assumed that the European Commission will hold its account in the National Bank of Poland. We were surprised when the tender was announced and have approached the Commission requesting more details," said the Finance Ministry's spokesman Wiktor Krzyżanowski. (Puls Biznesu, p. 8) A.K.