EU membership 'clearly positive' for Poland: anniversary report

Poland's first year as a member of the European Union was 'clearly positive' for the country, which has benefited notably from a better international reputation and stronger economy, a government report said Wednesday.

"We end our first year in the European Union on a clearly positive note," Prime Minister Marek Belka told reporters at a press conference where the report was officially presented.

"Although the situation did not improve everywhere, I challenge you to show me an area in which it deteriorated" since Poland joined the EU on May 1 last year, he said.

The report points to the growth of foreign direct investment which last year amounted to nearly 7.9 billion dollars (6.04 billion euros) in 2004, an increase of 23 percent compared with 2003 and the highest inflow over the last four years.

Exports from Poland to other EU member states grew by 35 percent between May and December last year compared with the same period in 2003.

Poland received 1.45 billion euros more in EU funds than the new member state paid into EU coffers.

"Agriculture benefited to the tune of 7.5 billion zlotys (1.8 billion euros)" from the EU, Belka said.

The most pessimistic of scenarios warned of by EU-naysayers before Poland joined the union -- massive bankruptcies among Polish small- and medium-sized businesses, produce from other EU countries flooding the market, foreigners buying up property in Poland, and a mass exodus of Polish workers in search of jobs elsewhere in the union -- did not materialise, said the report.

As a result "social mood and perception of the European Union and our membership therein have changed. The fears have sometimes given way to conviction of enhanced opportunities," said the report.

"For example, Polish SMEs, after the experiences of the first months of our presence in the union, mostly support membership, seeing it as providing development opportunities.

"The largest growth in support for accession was noted in farming and food production sectors where it went up from 20 percent to over 70 percent in just a few months," said the report, noting that "the incomes of persons making livings out of farming or trade in food produce went up".

In terms of Poland's growing importance on the international political scene, the report noted that Poland helped make "the European Union more open to Ukraine" and that Warsaw has had an "impact on the decision-making process, shaping of policies and legal acts of the European Union."

Poland "exerted significant influence on the course of the discussion on the shape of... the Union's budget for the years 2007 - 2013, whose biggest beneficiary should be Poland," it said.