It looked unprepossessing from the outside, a shabby, wooden hut in the middle of a high-rise housing estate in the Polish city of Gdansk, with a crude sign bearing the single word WARZYWA (vegetables). Inside, however, were a magnificent array of gnarled gherkins, plump, oddly shaped courgettes, big, ugly turnips and deep red tomatoes that actually taste of tomato - all for a few pence a pound.
To the weary, western European consumer, accustomed to the pristine, polythenepacked, perfectly tasteless fruit and vegetables available in most supermarkets, this was sheer delight. But if Poland fulfils its ambition to join the EU as soon as possible, shops like this are likely to disappear within a few years.
The reason is not, as many Poles suppose, that Brussels bureaucrats are itching to ban Polish vegetables, along with the mouthwatering local hams and sausages, for failing to meet EU norms. It is simply that Poland's food producers, most of whom operate on a tiny scale, will be unable to compete with a flood of cheap imports from the rest of the EU.
The reform of Polish agriculture is one of the biggest obstacles in the way of the EU's expansion to include the formerly communist states of central and eastern Europe, but it is far from being the only one. After decades of heavy industrialisation during which little thought was given to such matters as air quality or clean water, many parts of the region are an environmental nightmare.
"There is no chance that most of these countries will be able to meet all EU environmental standards within the next decade - or for a long time after that," according to Tom Dwyer, an Irish environmental consultant working in the Slovak capital of Bratislava.
Irish experts, many of them former public servants, are playing an important role in helping the applicant states to prepare for EU membership and all express admiration for the remarkable progress that has been made in only a few years. In Slovenia, formerly part of Yugoslavia and the Baltic states, which were Soviet republics, the task of economic modernisation has been accompanied by the challenge of creating new, national institutions.
Irish advisers are much in demand in central and eastern Europe, where the Republic is seen as a model for how to maximise the benefits of EU membership. The Irish economic boom is the most obvious focus for admiration, but policy-makers in the applicant states have been studying other elements of the Irish experience too.
In the Baltic States, for example, where Russia's influence remains strong (not least through television and radio), there is a keen interest in the way that EU membership influenced the Republic's relationship with Britain. Elsewhere, the impact of EU legislation on Irish social attitudes provides hope for human-rights activists promoting minority rights.
WHEN EU leaders meet in Nice later this year they will attempt to agree changes to the way EU decisions are made, so the process does not become too unwieldy when new member-states join. But it is not yet clear if the EU will set a date for the end of negotiations with the applicant states and, as support for enlargement diminishes among EU citizens, there are signs that some Western leaders want to slow down the enlargement process.
Small and medium-sized businesses, especially in Germany and Austria, fear that they will be at a disadvantage because of lower wages and poorer social welfare provision in the eastern states. Trade unions worry that an influx of workers will lower wages and that firms could move eastwards. And politicians are concerned that lax border controls and a shaky judicial system could allow millions of illegal immigrants into the EU.
One of the biggest potential difficulties is the sheer poverty of much of central and eastern Europe, despite the progress of the past 10 years. Living standards remain well below those in the West, making much of the region eligible for hefty subsidies from the EU - most of which would be paid for by western European taxpayers.
Complaints about the cost of enlargement annoy many eastern Europeans, who point out that almost all the cost of preparing for EU entry has so far been borne by the applicant states themselves.
"There's not so much talk about whose money it's being done with. So far it's been the taxpayers' money from the candidate countries. I never understand this talk in the EU about how much it costs. Nobody asks how much it has cost the taxpayers of the candidate states," said Alar Streimann, one of Estonia's negotiators with the EU.
Many of the changes imposed by the EU, especially those in the field of environment, are likely to save the candidate countries money in the long run and to enhance their economic performance. Other reforms would probably be necessary regardless of EU membership in order to compete in a global market.
But it is easy to understand the frustration felt by many central and eastern Europeans as they struggle to meet EU standards without any clear idea of when they can expect to become member-states. As they watch the Republic's progress with envy, many hope that Irish policy-makers will take a lead in urging the EU to take a generous, imaginative approach towards our future partners to the east.
