journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

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Ania Krok-Paszkowska and Jan Zielonka
payments levied on Polish food exports to the six EEC member states. Poland also
wanted to maintain its traditional markets for agricultural products, but the main
reason for seeking relations with the Common Market was to gain access to the
technology and machinery essential for the creation of a more modern industrial
base. 18 At this stage, given the geo-political context, the emphasis was very much
on economic and technical rather than political cooperation.
By 1972, Poland was maintaining regular unofficial contacts with the EEC and
14% of total Polish exports went to the EEC. (In 1998, when accession negotiations
with the EU were launched, 68.3% of Poland’s exports went to the EU). At a
meeting in Prague in June 1973, the CMEA decided to authorise its secretary
general to establish preliminary contacts with the EEC. However, since neither side
was willing to recognise the other as a supranational institution, it was not until
September 1986 that the EEC and CMEA actually held a first round of talks about
the possibility of establishing official relations. 19 In June 1987 official contacts
between the CMEA and the EEC were established and new possibilities for
cooperation were created. However, Poland had concluded bilateral agreements
with the EEC in specific sectors such as pork and poultry exports well before
official relations between the CMEA and the EEC had been established. It also
entered into agreements on trade and economic cooperation aimed at facilitating
access of Polish exports to Community’s markets and to enhance joint production
ventures and scientific and technological cooperation.
In September 1987 Poland applied to establish diplomatic relations with the
EEC and it became the second socialist country after Hungary to be recognised by
the EEC. 20 In 1988 a framework agreement between the CMEA and the EEC was
concluded in the form of a joint declaration on mutual recognition. Within a year
Poland then became the first Central and East European country to start its
transition to democracy with the signing of the Roundtable Agreements between
the Solidarity opposition and the PZPR [Polish United Workers’ Party] and its
allies. 21 Transitional, partially free elections were held in June 1989. Solidarity
candidates won all 35% of seats open to free competition in the lower house of
parliament, the Sejm, and 99 out of 100 seats in the newly-created Senate. Two
months later, a Solidarity prime minister, Tadeusz Mazowiecki, formed a coalition
government made up of eleven Solidarity ministers, seven ministers from the
satellite peasant and democratic parties, with four portfolios reserved for the
communists. Full and rapid integration into Western political, economic and
security structures such as the EU and NATO became the foreign policy priority for
18. J. KROK-PASZKOWSKI, Między Brukselą a Moskwą. Procesy integracyjne w Europie, Polonia
Book Fund Limited, London, 1975.
19. For aspects of EEC-CMEA relations until the 1980s, see W. BIEŃKOWSKI and M. HAKOGI,
Poland's Economic Relations with the West in the 1980's – the Impact of Political and Economic
Factors, in: Coexistence, 25:3(1998), pp.299-318.
20. Warsaw Voice, 3 May 1988.
21. J. BROWN, Surge to Freedom: the End of Communist Rule in Eastern Europe, Adamantine,
Twickenham, 1991.