What 'New' Europe Wants.(European Union)

Olechowski served as Poland's finance minister and foreign minister in the 1990s.

A popular Polish cartoon shows two knights rushing to battle. "Damn!" one says. "I forgot to ask what just cause we are fighting for this time!" So are the Poles, at the threshold of membership in the European Union, asking themselves today. What is this "New Europe," and what will happen when it merges with the "Old"?

In economic terms, things are relatively simple. The new members from the post-Communist countries--younger and leaner than the Western Europeans and hungry for success--will inject new vigor into the aging EU. Poland's national economic policies these days can be depressingly anti-free market and anti-entrepreneurial. But industry is ready. Its competitiveness is illustrated by the steady growth of exports to the EU, up more than 70 percent since 1995.

New Europe will also add to the pressures to tackle long-overdue reforms. Sclerotic EU labor-market restrictions will not long survive the addition of a large new pool of well-educated and relatively inexpensive workers. Alas, the Common Agricultural Policy--an important collective undertaking in the past, but now a waste of resources and human talent--will survive. Our many poor farmers will receive direct payments--just for being farmers! It's not hard to predict that they will become dedicated defenders of that policy. A pity, since agriculture is of marginal importance to the European economy.

What about the big picture--the future of Europe and its place in the world? We will be keen supporters of European integration--both economic and political. While the concept of a "federal" Europe would not be accepted by most Poles today, we will inevitably be pushed along by countries like Germany, France and Spain in precisely that direction. On these issues, we are closer to Berlin's view than London's. This is hardly an accident: the Germans are next door, and the British are on their island. We will complete our reconciliation with the Germans and keep on strengthening links between Poland, Germany and France through the so-called Weimar Triangle. We will ...