Schröder Visits Poland Ahead of EU Vote

German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder traveled to Poland on Wednesday to bolster Warsaw's campaign for a "yes" vote in the country's referendum on European Union membership this weekend.

While visiting the largest of the 10 EU accession states, which is home to 39 million, Schröder is due to hold talks with Polish Prime Minister Leszek Miller in the town of Lodz and is also expected to join him on a pro-EU, get-out-the-vote tour.

"I am convinced that the overwhelming majority of Poles won't miss this historic chance," Schröder told journalists in Lodz after meeting with Miller. Poland didn't just need Europe, but Europe also needed Poland with all its creative potential, he said.

"It is a process of giving and taking," Schröder added, comparing Poland's accession to the EU and the aid the country will receive to the reconstruction of Germany after World War II. "I am sure that European solidarity will help the Polish people just as much."

Tepid support among Farmers

Though the latest polls show the majority of Poles -- 80 percent -- are in favor of joining the European Union, building support was a slow and arduous process, with both Catholic Church and farming lobbies until recently leading staunch campaigns against EU membership.

For months, Polish farmers were outraged by the fact that older EU member states like France and Germany would get nearly double the agricultural subsidies from Brussels that they were slated to receive -- an imbalance that could lead to cheaper imports from the west that would undercut local farms.

However, a poll released by the Center for Public Research on Monday indicated that the majority of farmers are now ready to support EU membership. Fifty-two percent of the farmers surveyed said they would vote in favor of accession on Saturday and Sunday.

The farmers weren't alone in doubting the benefits of membership. Until recently, Poland's hugely powerful Catholic Church had also been campaigning against membership, fearing that EU entry would result in Poland losing its ability to carve it's own path on hot-button political issues like abortion.

Last year Catholic Church leader Cardinal Jozef Glemp demanded that Poland's anti-abortion position be recognized by the EU when it joins in 2004. But his plea fell on deaf ears. The left-leaning Miller government, which favors legalization of abortion, ignored the issue when it negotiated its accession terms with Brussels last year.

Catholic U-turn

The Catholic Church recently eased its objections to EU membership after Pope John Paul II came out in support of integration. "Europe needs Poland, and Poland needs Europe," he said on May 19.

The Pope's stance led the staunch-Catholic station Radio Marya, which had long been part of the anti-EU campaign, to make a U-turn this week. The station is now urging Polish Catholics to follow Vatican's advice and vote in favor of EU membership.

The station and its euroskeptic sister newspaper, Nasz Dziennik, had earlier called on Poles to "say 'no' in order to save Poland, for which the EU has reserved the role of a second-class member," and damned the EU as being "not heaven, not hell, at most purgatory."

The station has broadcast a starkly different message in the final days leading up to the referendum. "If the Holy Father says something, then we do not debate with the Holy Father," the station's director, Father Tadeusz Rydzyk said in a broadcast.

A raw deal for Polish farmers?

But many Polish farmers still believe they will get a raw deal if EU accession goes ahead. Farmers, who make up about 18 percent of the population, believe their businesses will be threatened if Poland joins the EU, arguing that the accession terms for EU entry have been unfair.

Under the terms hammered out between Warsaw and Brussels at last December's Copenhagen Summit, Polish farmers are set to receive only 45 percent of the subsidies they would normally during their first year of EU membership. Although that figure will rise to 65 percent in 2006, many are angry and have accused the Miller administration of selling them down the river.

50 percent turnout required

An additional problem facing the Polish government is getting Poles to the polls. Although the latest survey by the Warsaw-based pollster OBOP found that 57 percent of voters were planning to cast their ballot this weekend, the figure was only slightly higher than the 50 percent turnout required for the referendum to pass.

If Polish voters fail to ratify the accession treaty, the Polish parliament will have to do so itself through a two-thirds majority vote. Such a move could jeopardize Miller's government.

However, both Polish and foreign leaders have been out in force in recent weeks to assure Poles that voting "yes" will not be tantamount to surrendering their sovereignty and that, in the end, the benefits of membership will in the long-term outweigh the immediate consequences.

German aid for Iraq mission?

During his visit on Wednesday, Schröder is also expected to discuss the Polish-led security force in Iraq with Miller.

NATO countries agreed on Monday to provide logistics, intelligence, communications, movement coordination and other troop support for the 7,500-strong force which is expected to be deployed in Iraq's south-central zone starting in September. Poland has already received pledges of troops from Ukraine, Bulgaria, Denmark and Norway.

"We must find a way to enable us all to do our bit in building a new civil society in Iraq," German parliamentarian and member of the German-Polish society, Dietmar Niethahn told Deutsche Welle.

"And in that context I think it's very important that Poland gets support from NATO. And if NATO gives Poland help, Germany as a NATO member will be one of the countries to support them too."