Report Card on Unity; the New European Union Celebrates the First Anniversary of Enlargement. How's It Doing?

Byline: William Underhill (With Eric Pape in Paris and Wojciech Rogacin in Warsaw)

Teresa Wawer is happy as a pig in warm... well, let's just say she's that rare creature--a happy farmer. The market for her pork is booming. During the past year she's plunged almost 90,000 euros into new equipment for her 130-hectare farm in eastern Poland. "The European Union has made our dreams come true," she says. Not only is Brussels paying for much of her new farm gear, but it's also removed trade barriers to Poland's richer Western neighbors. Exports have surged by 30 percent or more, subsidies are flowing in and farm incomes are rising fast--up 70 percent, in some cases, over the past year. At the same time, EU funds are financing new highways to carry thousands of newly imported cars from the West. The only loser: the nationalist Self-Defense Party, a diehard enemy of the EU, has seen its support in the countryside plummet as prosperity climbs.

So what went right? When the EU took in eight new members from Central and Eastern Europe in May 2004, populist pols …

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Publication information: Article title: Report Card on Unity; the New European Union Celebrates the First Anniversary of Enlargement. How's It Doing?. Contributors: Not available. Magazine title: Newsweek International. Publication date: May 2, 2005. Page number: 36. © 2009 Newsweek, Inc. All rights reserved. Any reuse, distribution or alteration without express written permission of Newsweek is prohibited. For permission: www.newsweek.com. COPYRIGHT 2005 Gale Group.

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