Five years ago in the Voice:

One of the leading and toughest European Union officials, the Netherlands' Hans van den Broek, made a two-day visit to Poland in an effort to supervise and facilitate the country's preparations for EU accession talks.

The task was very strenuous, if not impossible, for van den Broek, the European Commission's commisioner for the EU's enlargement and foreign relations. As such, he must be firm: encouraging candidate countries while pointing out their draw-backs. Van den Broek seemed quite pleased, noting that "Poland has made, in our view, a large improvement, especially in macroeconomic policy, in the last several months." He was quick to add, however, that there was still a lot to be done.

(1998)