New Polish Cabinet Freezes Spending

Poland’s new left-wing government slapped a freeze on spending at its first Cabinet meeting Saturday and announced a diplomatic drive to relaunch talks on joining the European Union.

Prime Minister Leszek Miller, sworn in Friday, accused the outgoing right-wing government of using overly optimistic forecasts and bungling when passing an emergency budget revision during the summer.

That meant spending this year worth $2.1 billion would have to be put on hold because flagging growth has cut further into revenues since then. A second amendment will have to be made to this year’s budget.

“The state of the economy is worse than our predecessors even imagined when they were amending the budget back in July,” Miller, a Communist-turned-social democrat, told a news conference.

He said he would make his first foreign trip as premier to Germany on Wednesday. Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder is Poland’s strongest advocate in its bid to join the EU by 2004.

“The Germans are our most important economic and political partners. They are also our neighbors,” Miller told reporters. “I hope these talks are fruitful--they are very important for both our nations.”

Belgian Prime Minister Guy Verhofstadt, representing the EU presidency, will visit Poland on Tuesday. He said after an EU summit Friday that the bloc may name the first group of candidates likely to join in 2004 as soon as December, in a move to speed the enlargement process after the Sept. 11 attacks in the United States.