Right on track

摘要

In rural north-western Poland, a suave, Oxford-educated politician is explaining the advantages of European Union membership. Bad roads are a big problem for Polish farmers, explains Radek Sikorski, a teenage refugee from communism who now runs the transatlantic programme at the American Enterprise Institute, a think-tank in Washington, DC. And EU money is now paying for new ones, helping Polish competitiveness. But a middle-aged woman is unconvinced: "Good roads will help foreigners to come here and buy up all our food," she protests. Mr Sikorski patiently explains the principles of supply and demand. He is used to this. The previous day a voter in a spa town complained that Germans were going to "buy up all the water".