Tony Blair urges accelerated EU negotiations and speedy Polish admission

Tony Blair urges accelerated EU negotiations and speedy Polish admission British Prime Minister Tony Blair in Warsaw on Friday called for quickening of negotiations with candidate countries and urged th admission of new candidates as quickly as possible. He said that new members should be accepted in order to participate in the elections to the European Parliament in 2004, adding that the expansion of the EU is a great opportunity to stabilize Central Europe and create a market of more than half a billion consumers. Anticipating a breakthrough next year when Sweden will assume rotating chairmanship of the EU, Blair presented a British vision of a united Europe. Speaking in favor of the Union based on "national" states ruled by democratically elected governments, Blair proposed establishing a second chamber of the European Parliament in which members of national governments would sit. During this official visit to Poland Tony Blair met with the President Aleksander Kwasniewski and Polish Prime Minister Jerzy Buzek, and discussed British investments in Poland, and according to Rzeczpospolita, the sector mainly in question was the armaments industry. "We will do everything to be prepared for EU membership in January 2003. We hope the EU will be ready to accept us at that time," said Jerzy Buzek after the talks. (Rzeczpospolita, October 7-8, pages A1, A5; Reuters)