Poland applied for EU membership in April 1994 and since then has followed a program designed to adjust its legal and economic structures to EU standards.

Agriculture is the area that Poland most needs to reform in order to conform to EU standards. But this sector also stubbornly refused to collectivize during the Communist regime because of the belief that collectivization would mean a loss of identity. Polish agriculture continues to be a potent political force: agriculture accounted for over two-thirds of the private sector economy in 1989, the year the Communist regime fell, and it is still a large part of the private sector today. Polish integration into the European Union poses the same threat to farming that Communism did, and integration can thus expect the same kind of opposition.

Poland is home to roughly two million farms, most of which are located in isolated, economically underdeveloped areas. Like his predecessors 50 years ago, the average Polish farmer today still owns only two or three cows and foregoes modern sanitation and breeding processes. However, agricultural interests have been effective at political mobilization, as reflected by the generous subsidies and low-interest loans that the government consistently grants farmers.

Polish agricultural efficiency is shockingly low, partly as a result of a high supply of labor. Agriculture employed 26 percent of Poland's working population in 1991, compared to a 6.2 percent average for the entire European Union. This high rate is not shared by other Eastern and Central European nations. Thus, Poland's high agricultural-- employment rate is not a general feature of Eastern European development but one that is unique to Poland. The cultural emphasis of the Polish people on traditional identities and on respecting the heritage of their ancestors seems to be an element that is distinctive enough to cause such a discrepancy.

Where EU economists see poor utilization of resources, Polish citizens see family traditions and cultural roots. Many members of younger generations have left their farms to work in the booming urban corporate sector, but they remain steadfastly loyal to their familial past. Due to Poland's agricultural tradition, loyalty to the family often means loyalty to the land, a personal attachment to the family's farms and fields. Not even these young men and women would allow their family land to be collectivized into impersonal factories that churn out produce and livestock.

This adherence to cultural roots is as much a result of fear as of sentiment. Poland's current apprehension toward external rules and its attachment to native culture can be explained by the history of the Polish people before the rebirth of the independent state. From 1795 to 1919, Poland was not a sovereign, unitary political body but was instead partitioned into three sections controlled by Russia, Prussia, and Austria. Although the last, unsuccessful Polish insurrection in 1864 marked the end of the Polish ethnic group as a militant body, the Poles still clung ardently to their national spirit.The period that followed was marked by internal efforts to cultivate non-violent, cultural means of solidarity through constructive social work. For example, Polish nationalism was and continues to be emphasized at school.The option of physical insurrection was largely discarded, and the need for physical reinforcement of the nation was replaced by a unity of culture that has proven to be much stronger than political boundaries or structures.

To Poles, the European Union threatens Polish culture by attacking the root of that culture: the relationship Poles have to their land. In order to meet the EU's prerequisites for integration, Poland would have to collectivize and industrialize its agriculture in order to take advantage of economies of scale. But by becoming larger and more industrialized, collective farms would bring about the destruction of independent farmers. While this move seems to be the most efficient for total production, it sacrifices indigenous culture, especially in a country where culture and the family land are so intimately related.

Thus, although the European Union hardly threatens domination or conquest, it imposes substantial political and economic pressures. Poland's perception of a threat is only exacerbated by the fact that it would be in the minority as an Eastern European nation among a coalition of Western European nations. In addition, Poland did not participate in creating the inflexible guidelines that it will now have to comply with-further emphasizing its outsider status. On the other hand, if Poland does not join the European Union, it will most likely become an outcast in the newly empowered structure of Europe, suffering economically and losing any prospects of advancement on an international level. But it is important to recognize that the European Union, with its constraints and standards, seems to be agitating newly healed wounds in Poland.

Distrust of foreign imposition remains a powerful feeling in Poland. In the end, time-to establish deeper roots for its young democratic government and to come to terms with being a nation-state-may be what Poland needs before it is truly willing to enter the European Union. After centuries of domination by neighbors of greater military might, this Eastern European country simply wants to catch its breath.