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Post by pieter on May 16, 2019 8:04:30 GMT -7
29 APRIL 2019Fifteen years of Poland's membership in the EUOn 1 May 2004, Poland, together with the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Slovenia, Cyprus and Malta, joined the EU. The 2004 enlargement was the largest in the Union’s history. In the first step, on 16 December 1991, Poland signed the Europe Agreement on 16 December 1991 establishing an association between Poland and the European Communities and their Member States. A symbolic moment came on 8 April 1994 in Athens with the submission of a formal application for membership in the European Union by the Government of the Republic of Poland. Official accession negotiations with the EU began four years later – in the accession referendum, which took place on 7-8 June 2003, 77.45 percent of Poles voted in favour of EU membership.
Poland is the most populous and largest country in terms of territory to have joined the EU since 2004. Poland’s is the sixth largest EU economy according to the GDP value and one of the fastest growing. Poland is an active and important member of the Union, engaged in key debates on its future, migration, climate and economic policy. Poland's EU membership strengthens the country’s international standing and brings many economic, political and social benefits.
“Poland’s accession to the European Union crowned the efforts of all governments that were formed after Solidarity’s victory in 1989. […] EU membership has become a foundation for the modernization of our state, economy, and foreign policy”, Minister of Foreign Affairs Jacek Czaputowicz said in his foreign policy address to the Sejm of the Republic of Poland on 14th March 2019. Ministry of Foreign Affiars of the Polish Republic Press Office
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Post by pieter on May 16, 2019 8:12:39 GMT -7
It was quite funny that I in that time in the end of April was in Kraków where huge celebrations were going on with Blue European flags and banners on the central square, Stare Miasto, in the Old city center. We entered Poland with German and Polish border checks, because Poland in April 2004 wasn't a member of the EU yet and when we went back in early may Poland was a member of the EU and there was no border check. But the difference at the border was still noticable back then. The Polish peoples republic era Polish highway in a bad shape with holes and pits on the skelleton road, while on the border on the other side there was a Modern, West-German style smooth and luxerious highway. Maybe these ills are cured today, but back then I had a pain in my neck and head due to the bumping up and dowm of the touring bus due to these holes and pits.
Strange enough that bad Polish highway was on the Western border between the Polish German (Neisse river) border and Legnica, after that you had simple Peoples republic era looking highsways, but between Chrzanów and Kraków the highway was suddenly new, West-European standard, German or a New Dutch or French highway like. Today probably all Polish highways are modern, smoothe and pleasent.
The new highway I described between between Chrzanów and Kraków was autostrada A4 in Poland, a 672.75 km (418.03 mi) long east-west motorway that runs through southern Poland, along the north side the Sudetes and Carpathian Mountains, from the Polish-German border at Zgorzelec-Görlitz (connecting to the German A4 autobahn), bypassing Wrocław, Opole, Strzelce Opolskie, Gliwice, Katowice, Kraków, Tarnów, Dębica and Rzeszów to the Polish-Ukrainian border at Korczowa-Krakovets. The motorway is a part of the European route E40. The A4 parallels national road 94 (which connects with German Bundesstraße 6).
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