Poland Votes Overwhelmingly to Join EU

Poland has voted overwhelmingly Saturday and Sunday to join the European Union. Early results show eight out of 10 Poles voted for EU membership.

Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski tells a cheering crowd at the presidential palace, the vote represents what he called Poland's return to Europe. He spoke shortly after early results made it clear more than 50 percent of voters -- the minimum required to make the ballot legally valid -- turned out to vote.

Local television also reported more than 80 percent of the voters said "Tak" -- the Polish for "Yes" -- to the ballot question: "Do you express your consent for the Republic of Poland to join the European Union?"

The outcome came as a major boost for embattled Prime Minister Leszek Miller, whose government saw its popularity decline in the wake of corruption scandals and widespread anger over high unemployment. Mr. Miller and other political leaders campaigned heavily for membership, which they believe will help Poland to overcome a legacy of 40 years of communist rule that ended in 1989.

Speaking to a pro-EU crowd, Mr. Miller made clear his country still faces major challenges. "We are returning to Europe with the tremendous potential of the Polish people." He cautions, however, that Poland has a hard road ahead in trying to bring its economy up to EU levels.

With nearly 40 million people, Poland will become the largest of the 10 candidate countries vying to join the 15-nation bloc next year. It is expected to hold voting power equal to Spain's and behind only Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy.

With most Poles supporting EU membership, the only question before the two-day referendum was whether enough voters would bother to vote. The government even asked European leaders, including British Prime Minister Tony Blair and German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, to encourage Poles to cast their ballots.

Polish-born Pope John Paul II himself went out of his way to encourage mainly Catholic Poland to seize this historic opportunity and go out and vote. As he put it, "the Church in Europe needs the Polish peoples' witness to the faith."

News about the outcome of Poland's referendum is expected to be welcomed in the Czech Republic, which will vote on EU-membership next week, followed by the Baltic states of Latvia and Estonia in September.

Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Lithuania have already approved entry into the European Union. Cyprus is the only candidate country that does not intend to hold a referendum on the issue.

You are correct that Poland didn't really overthrow Soviet rule. Solidarity was a major resistance movement, however. So, it's more accurate to say that Poland was liberated due to the collapse of the Soviet empire. My main point, however, is that the EU is hardly free. The Eurocrats in Brussels will be doing everything in their considerable power to destroy and undermine the traditional Roman Catholic-based Polish society. One of the other posters pointed out that the current President of Poland is anti-abortion, for example. The EU rulers will shove abortion, the homosexual agenda, hate crimes, and a host of other assorted leftist programs down Polish throats. The EU constitution is currently being amended so that member states will not be able to leave the EU even if the vast majority of their population votes to do so.

While I can understand that there may be economic advantages for Poland to join the EU, I think you seriously underestimate the totalitarian impulse of the Eurocrats in Brussels. The EU has mandated numerous policies that will untimately destroy Poland as a viable nation in its own right. Even though the UK is not yet fully in the EU, already there are totalitarian programs in place: the denial of the right to defend one's person or property against criminal assault, the enshrinement of "hate crime" laws which are merely an excuse to suppress free speech and criticism of the ruling elite, implementing the homosexual agenda - including lowering the age of consent so as to allow pedophiles to operate freely, the mandating of the feminist agenda - especially unlimited abortion on demand, and the destruction of sovereignty through unlimited Muslim and third world immigration.

The conservative prime ministers of both Spain and Italy are largely opposed to the leftist utopian program to destroy their nations, but are largely powerless to put a stop to it. The UK's Tony Blair, despite his support for the war in Iraq, is a hard core leftist who has no problem with the various agendas listed above.

Your rants are hard to bear, but let´s try to stay stick to facts. (btw, why do you have an English sounding name when you´re Polish?)

Actually, if we take a closer look at the map of Europe, we'll see that after the EU expansion, Poland (if it stays outside) will be a hole between the EU from one side and Russia, Belarus and Ukraine from the other. It's a dramatic choice for us. It's not a choice: to gain or lose. It's a choice between losing more and losing much much more

Do you HONESTLY believe that Germany will be attacking Poland again? Or the Ukraine or Russia? This is just not going to happen for
a) There is nothing to gain in Poland. True, there are territories which would be rightfully German (and there are territories in Russia/Ukraine which would be rightfully Polish - it is really a joke that after WW2 Poland had to give much of its territory to Russia!), but I think it is final and good that these territories are Polish today. After all, we have trouble with paying for the former DDR, what would we want with more communist ruined country (I am not blaming Poland for the ruined country).
b) Any attacker would face such a world wide opposition it was sheer suicide - Poland being in the EU give or take.

The reason you (and many others) are in the EU is money - and it is largely Germany´s money - even today with our economy wrecked we pay lots of money into EU funds. Have you ANY idea how much money Germany has paid to other EU countries so far???

All the already negotiated benefits put together are actually less than the profits from purchasing 48 U.S. F-16s jet fighters with its off-set program

Ah, another fine example. These jets were bought mainly with money the EU promised you and you pissed of a lot of Europeans (not only French and Germans, but British and Spanish as well), by buying F-16s instead of European products.

The EU especially Germany and France appears to us as Sodom and Gomorrah with its abortion, euthanasia and pro-gay rights

Where are your facts? There is no "euthanasia" in Germany (source???). Which gay rights are you referring to? I am not willing to discuss abortion here other than saying that under certain circumstances abortion should be allowed. We share about the same laws on abortion and gay rights than the US - does this make the US Sodom and Gomorrah in your equation?

We are Christians and we don't want to have prostitution districts in our cities as it is in Hamburg, Berlin or Paris. No Berliner Jebenstrasse in Poland forever and ever!!! Fortunately, we have been free from this so far. How long? Time will tell, but this is that something we hate about the EU! Moral dirt! Rotten morality! Child pornography! Pedophilia scandals

Now this is where your ranting becomes hard to bear. Every country has prostitution districts (while I don´t care for them, it is something you can´t help). You have been free of this? LMAO! There are whole highways in Poland right after the German-Polish border called whore-highways, were Polish whores sell themselves to rich westerners. Most of the whores in German brothels come from former Eastern European countries, most of them from Czech Republic or Poland. Get real man!

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