Wide context
Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)
/^t/Poland is one of the countries that rank as front runners for future EU membership. What are the basic reasons for such a situation, why should our country join the European Union? First, the countries of the EU signed the Single European Act that provided for the creation of the Single European Market. Such Single Market, established in 1993, began guaranteeing free movement of people, goods, capital and services. And taking part in such a market would give Poland the chance to progress economically by leaps and bounds. Second, those who live in that Single Market decided to establish the European Monetary Union (EMU) and eventually to create a single European currency. Stage one of EMU provided for full liberalization of capital movements. Stage two of EMU established the European Monetary Institute. Stage three that will take place in 1999 will start monetary union. And, probably after the year 2000, Euro notes and coins will replace national currencies over a six-month period. The two factors (Single Market and single European currency) that have already been mentioned and a shared set of economic rules would strengthen the ties that bound Europe together. Those ties are very important as far as the third reason for joining the European Union is concerned. Our nation which crawled from the wreckage in 1945 had seared into it the memory of a Europe that had twice sacrificed millions of its people. Poles have long joked about their uncertain geopolitical position. Poland is "a country which is east of the West and west of the East", said playwright Slawomir Mrozek. Because of this the Polish government understands that the best way in which we can guarantee European peace and at the same time guarantee the security for our nation is to bind the ties of friendship and economic unification between the European countries. The next positive factor in joining the European Union is the chance of cooperation with other Union's members in different fields of everyday life. The countries can help each other financially, they can discover new technologies in the field of corporate environmental management, they can develop the policies concerning environment, health and economics.