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WARSAW, Oct 19, 1999 -- (Agence France Presse) Polish support for European Union membership dropped below 50 percent for the first time this week, as painful economic reforms needed for EU entry began to bite, experts said Tuesday.
The record-low Euro-enthusiasm came at the end of a long slide in EU popularity, which stood at 64 percent in February 1998, just before Warsaw began entry talks with Brussels along with four other ex-communist states.
In a new survey by the PBS polling institute Monday, only 46 percent of Poles backed Warsaw's hopes of joining the European Union, while 27 percent declared themselves openly hostile to the idea.
Brussels is watching closely development in Poland, which has 40 million inhabitants and the strongest economy of the six first-wave EU candidates, which also include Estonia, the Czech Republic, Slovenia, Hungary and Cyprus.
Experts say Poles are disappointed by Brussels's perceived lack of urgency to press ahead with EU enlargement, as well as the social costs of the reforms implemented to prepare the country for membership of the Union.
"Poland's membership plans risk losing momentum if no date is agreed at the Helsinki summit in December and if the European Union gives the impression it wants to slow down the process," said Societe Generale economist James Owen.
"The danger exists, in particular if the Germans do not put pressure on to support Poland" at the EU summit in the Finnish capital on December 10-11, he said.
"It must also be said that the Polish government is not doing well in its job of educating people, because it is not explaining to Poles the benefits which Poland can get from membership."
Poland says it will be ready to join the European Union by the end of 2002, although most analysts believe this forecast is over-optimistic.
In its latest report on the candidate countries' EU-readiness, the European Commission praised its economic transformation, but was more cautious about its progress in adapting its laws to EU standards.
"Many people see all the big reforms launched this year as having been imposed by the European Union," said Krzysztof Rybinski, chief economist at ING Barings.
The sentiment is echoed by Katarzyna Zajdel, an economist at Citibank, who says many Poles associate EU membership with unemployment and economic difficulties which are currency squeezing the country.
"Poles have the impression that the government is very confused about this issue, and don't understand what is happening" in Brussels, where leaders appear to be dragging their feet over EU enlargement, she said.
Hostility to the EU is traditionally strongest in the Polish countryside, where reforms bite particularly hard in the country's huge agricultural sector, which employs 25 percent of the national workforce.
According to the latest survey, only 31 percent of supporters of the main rural-based party, the PSL, want Poland to join the EU.
The only respite from the EU popularity slump came in June 1999 when it jumped back up to 62 percent. But this proved to be a blip, probably caused by a visit by Polish-born Pope John Paul II who urged Poles not to fear the EU.