Yes to Europe

Warsaw

Poles this week voted overwhelmingly to join the European Union, as they are scheduled to do next spring. “We can say loudly that we are returning to the great European family,” shouted President Aleksander Kwasniewski as returns came in. It wasn’t a foregone conclusion: Poland only recently regained its independence after 40-odd years as a Soviet satellite, and many Poles weren’t eager to limit their sovereignty so soon. Since Poland has more citizens than the other nine candidate countries combined, a no vote would have been a real blow to the E.U.’s plan to expand from 15 to 25 members.

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