"We're being bribed with our own money" - and they were
And everyone lived happily ever after...
In the end the deal was done, the bluffs were called and honour preserved on all sides.
Poland could have done with the extra two billion euros which Leszek Miller pushed for right up until the last minute.
Unfortunately, the financial package on offer to pay for EU enlargement does not extend to bailing out bankrupt national treasuries.
So Miller had to pretend the Poles were in danger of getting a raw financial deal from the EU and, in the end, the argument didn't wash.
But boy did he try: he took the enlargement negotiations right to the brink. He kept the champagne corked for hours. He drove everybody mad.
Poland, like all the other applicants, was assured long ago that it would be a net beneficiary from the EU in the early membership years - and what other club actually pays you to join?
But for Mr Miller and his struggling government that was not enough. What the Prime Minister needed was an extra gesture and some very public recognition of the fact that he has pushed as hard as possible for the best deal that anyone - even a Polish farmer - could expect from EU membership.
He risked losing political goodwill before the country had even joined, and there were dark threats that Polish membership would be put back to 2007.
But bullying pays off, and Mr Miller got that gesture at the Copenhagen summit last Friday evening - a deft juggling of the arithmetic, shifting sums between EU budget accounts to give the appearance of extra cash "to take account of the specific situation in the Republic of Poland."
What the EU leaders did was take one billion euros away from the sums due to Poland to support long-term "structural" development - regional and social modernisation - and use it for other short-term purposes, such as topping up the direct payments farmers will receive.
No-one tried to hide the fact that there is no new money involved. But as the Poles cannot possibly use up all the cash in the "structural" fund, it was easy to redeploy it for immediate use and make up the cash shortfall Poland has been complaining about.
"This one billion euros will be made available as an exceptional and temporary cash flow facility in the years 2005 (€550 million) and 2006 (€450 million)" said the final deal.
One of the Polish government negotiating team in Copenhagen was unimpressed: "We're being bribed with our own money!" she declared, and it's true, they were.
But at least Mr Miller could go home with some extra EU money to spend, and claim to have put Poland's stamp on the EU at the same time.
The EU side were equally able to declare that they had not given away an extra euro and had therefore not been pushed around by a supplicant, albeit a big and politically important one.
At one point during those tense final negotiating hours before history was officially made, one EU diplomat said Mr Miller was "in cloud cuckoo land" by pushing for so much more money.
But, in his own terms, the Prime Minister did secure half his extra demands, and therefore returned home a conquering hero.
"The Poles have all the arrogance of the French, the euro-scepticism of the British, and the brutal negotiating skills of the Spanish," said one summitteer late on Friday night.
In the new club to which Poland has just been admitted, that is flattery indeed. Meanwhile, the theatricals were clearly meant to entertain the home audience. But they may have worked the other way.
Geoff Meade is European Union editor of the Press Association
In the end the deal was done, the bluffs were called and honour preserved on all sides.
Poland could have done with the extra two billion euros which Leszek Miller pushed for right up until the last minute.
Unfortunately, the financial package on offer to pay for EU enlargement does not extend to bailing out bankrupt national treasuries.
So Miller had to pretend the Poles were in danger of getting a raw financial deal from the EU and, in the end, the argument didn't wash.
But boy did he try: he took the enlargement negotiations right to the brink. He kept the champagne corked for hours. He drove everybody mad.
Poland, like all the other applicants, was assured long ago that it would be a net beneficiary from the EU in the early membership years - and what other club actually pays you to join?
But for Mr Miller and his struggling government that was not enough. What the Prime Minister needed was an extra gesture and some very public recognition of the fact that he has pushed as hard as possible for the best deal that anyone - even a Polish farmer - could expect from EU membership.
He risked losing political goodwill before the country had even joined, and there were dark threats that Polish membership would be put back to 2007.
But bullying pays off, and Mr Miller got that gesture at the Copenhagen summit last Friday evening - a deft juggling of the arithmetic, shifting sums between EU budget accounts to give the appearance of extra cash "to take account of the specific situation in the Republic of Poland."
What the EU leaders did was take one billion euros away from the sums due to Poland to support long-term "structural" development - regional and social modernisation - and use it for other short-term purposes, such as topping up the direct payments farmers will receive.
No-one tried to hide the fact that there is no new money involved. But as the Poles cannot possibly use up all the cash in the "structural" fund, it was easy to redeploy it for immediate use and make up the cash shortfall Poland has been complaining about.
"This one billion euros will be made available as an exceptional and temporary cash flow facility in the years 2005 (€550 million) and 2006 (€450 million)" said the final deal.
One of the Polish government negotiating team in Copenhagen was unimpressed: "We're being bribed with our own money!" she declared, and it's true, they were.
But at least Mr Miller could go home with some extra EU money to spend, and claim to have put Poland's stamp on the EU at the same time.
The EU side were equally able to declare that they had not given away an extra euro and had therefore not been pushed around by a supplicant, albeit a big and politically important one.
At one point during those tense final negotiating hours before history was officially made, one EU diplomat said Mr Miller was "in cloud cuckoo land" by pushing for so much more money.
But, in his own terms, the Prime Minister did secure half his extra demands, and therefore returned home a conquering hero.
"The Poles have all the arrogance of the French, the euro-scepticism of the British, and the brutal negotiating skills of the Spanish," said one summitteer late on Friday night.
In the new club to which Poland has just been admitted, that is flattery indeed. Meanwhile, the theatricals were clearly meant to entertain the home audience. But they may have worked the other way.
Geoff Meade is European Union editor of the Press Association
