PS: What are the main priorities of your Dublin visit?

JB: The fundamental question is Polish accession to the EU and I would like personally to establish a closer relationship with the Irish Prime Minister. Irish political support is very important both for the negotiations and the process of bringing Polish structures into line with EU structures.

The bilateral relationship is also important, particularly the trade links between the two countries. Currently those are unbalanced in Ireland's favour. We would like to increase our exports to Ireland and it must be in the interest of both countries to even up that balance.

Those will be the two main themes of the visit, but I would also like to stress that for many years Ireland has been a strong supporter of Polish aspirations to join the Union. I would like to express our gratitude for that support, because I'm convinced that Polish accession will benefit not only this country but the whole Union.

PS: Is the Irish experience in the EU of particular interest to you?

JB: Yes. We want to learn a lot from Ireland. Ireland has been in the Union for a long time and also had to negotiate access at a time when the EEC was already substantially developed. So we would like to learn about the negotiating process itself and how to negotiate. And we are keen to learn how Ireland made best use of the structural funds, about good co-operation with the other member states, and how to make full use of all the opportunities created by the Union.

Poland faces the same opportunities as you did and we are firmly convinced that our accession will not be a threat to Ireland. On the contrary, the enlargement of the Union to include the Polish market of 40 million people is also a major opportunity for the current member states and for Ireland.

That rich Irish experience is now potentially our future.

PS: Has the Russian crisis meant a reappraisal?

JB: I have to say we are not in a bad position in this regard. Poland has currently a totally different economic system to Russia, and a totally different political and democratic system to that pertaining in the countries to the east, particularly Russia.

If Russia's crisis has an impact, it is likely to be through its effect on the European economy which is likely to suffer greater damage than us. The prognosis is for a growth rate in the Polish economy of more than 5 per cent next year. We have been able to maintain such a rate of growth for five years, and the fundamentals of the economy and our finances are such that we should be able sustain that level in the future. We are trying to reduce the budget deficit to zero within the next few years. We are also reforming our tax system to reinforce that growth. We are working intensively on our privatisation programme, and I would like to use the opportunity of this interview to invite Irish investors to invest in Poland.

Privatisation is going ahead, even though prices on the Polish Stock Exchange have fallen slightly - but not as much as on world markets - and we think that there are no looming events that could hit the stock market or change the good overall perspective. Inflation is falling. For the first time in many years it is below 10 per cent. Unemployment has fallen by 1.3 percentage points to 9.5 per cent and is still falling.

So we have very good fundamentals and we intend to keep them that way.

The Russian crisis is primarily a crisis of confidence, more related to the psychology of the markets than to the real economy. The Russian economy only represents some 1 per cent of the world economy so its effect, in normal conditions, on world markets should be much more limited.

Poland did not invest in Russia to the extent that the other western countries rightly did in the early 1990s. We believe that it is important to invest in Russia to support its economy and it's simply that Poland did not have enough funds at the time.

That failure, paradoxically, is now to our advantage as we have not been exposed to losses on the Russian market.

So the impact of the Russian crisis on our economy will be minimal.

PS: In Brussels there is talk of accession by Poland in 2006. Can the Poles realistically join in 2003?

JB: Yes. I am convinced so.

We are implementing many far-reaching reforms of a sort which in other countries would take many years to complete or would be implemented consecutively instead of concurrently. There are reforms in healthcare, education, pensions, local government, mining, and steel. In farming too, changes that are likely to take 10 or 15 years. And we are reforming the army and public finances.

These changes, which are bringing Poland closer and closer to the Union have both a substantial forward impetus and great public support. That is running at over 60per cent, the highest in central and eastern European countries.

We want to sustain this dynamism.

In the recent local elections, conducted for the first time at three levels of local government, support for the coalition parties in government was sustained at last year's parliamentary election level. So society does accept these changes.

We have the chance to turn ourselves into a modern economy, a modern state, and a modern political system, to finish the negotiations and join the Union as soon as possible. And we're convinced that by the end of 2002, if we sustain the current rate of reform, it will be possible to join then. To talk of later dates would be to undermine the dynamic of change and the social and political will needed to sustain it.

PS: Do you accept that as part of an accession deal there will have to be substantial transition periods on some EU policies such as the environment, farming, the right to buy Polish land, and the free movement of Polish workers in the rest of the EU ?

JB: A transition period will be needed in the field of environmental protection as there are expenses which we will be unable to cope with in the short term.

We plan to adapt the farm sector within a few years to the point of not needing such long transition periods. And as to land ownership, we'll be introducing new regulations to shorten the necessity for a transition period.

As to free movement of labour we are convinced that by the time of accession the economic situation in this country - both in terms of per capita income and the level of unemployment - will be such that the immediate, full free movement of labour should not be a problem. With a strong economy and low unemployment, opening our borders will not be a threat to the western European countries.

We are convinced we will join the Union as a strong partner. Polish accession will also underline the continued eastward expansion of the influence of European values of democracy and respect for human rights.