Poland’s President Lech Kaczynski Wednesday in Warsaw signed a package of laws designed to streamline investment procedures and thus speed-up work preparing Poland to co-host UEFA’s 2012 European football championships along with eastern neighbour Ukraine.

In the heat of Poland’s ongoing general election campaign, opposition politicians have slammed the government of President Kaczynski’s identical twin brother, Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski for dragging its heels with regard to the highly important project. With no world-class football stadiums and virtually no European-class highways, many have expressed serious doubts as to whether Poland will be prepared for the 2012 kick-off. Poland, which joined the EU in 2004, will co-host the Euro 2012 football finals with non-EU Ukraine. Both countries are now faced with the mammoth tasks of building a new motorway and stadium infrastructure.

Poland currently has no world-class stadium facilities and a only a very limited motorway network. Poland is also struggling with a hooligan problem, which came to the fore again in July when European football’s ruling body UEFA threw Legia Warsaw out of the Intertoto Cup and banned the Polish club from European competition for a year. The ban came in the wake of crowd trouble when Legia fans ran amok during a second round first-leg match against FK Vetra Vilnius in the Lithuanian capital. Poland’s Prime Minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski subsequently apologized to Lithuanian Prime Minister Gediminas Kirkilas for the violence.

From: www.earthtimes.org