POLAND/CZECH REPUBLIC: One year later, the Polish and Czech political landscape has changed, writes Daniel McLaughlin
As the first anniversary of their EU accession beckons this weekend, the beleaguered Czech and Polish governments look in need of something stronger than champagne to steady their fraying nerves.
A year ago as he became Polish prime minister just after his country joined the EU, Marek Belka raised a glass to his nation's extraordinary journey from Soviet subjugation, while Stanislav Gross in Prague was just months away from becoming Europe's youngest premier.
Now, Mr Gross (35) is unemployed, Mr Belka is itching to quit both his post and his party and their scandal-weary countrymen are being wooed by EU sceptics and casting an ever-darker eye over the Brussels constitution.
Mr Gross finally resigned this week after battling a storm of sleaze that raged around his office for months and sent the popularity of his Social Democrat allies plummeting below that of the largely unreformed Communist Party.
A reputation for youthful media savvy was shattered as Mr Gross failed dismally to deal with persistent media queries about how he managed to buy a luxury Prague apartment on his government salary.
What was called evidence of his family's solid values last year - his wife Sarka wanting to live in their flat rather than the usual premier's residence - is now seen as the first clue in a scandal that led to her admitting that her partner in a property deal was being investigated for fraud and owned a house which served as a brothel.
That was the last straw for Mr Gross's coalition partners, the Christian Democrats and Freedom Union, who after tortuous negotiations agreed to form another government with the Social Democrats as long as a new prime minister was appointed.
That man, Czechs discovered this week, was to be Jiri Paroubek, the regional development minister in the last cabinet and a politician who appears to inspire little enthusiasm among voters and low expectations from experts.
"Paroubek is not a particularly strong character and is not well-known," said political analyst Bohumil Dolezal.
"I am not expecting any miracles from his leadership but he is a compromise choice and under his leadership, the government has a fair chance of surviving the rest of the election term."
With all parties jockeying for position ahead of elections due next spring, the Paroubek government is unlikely to achieve many much-needed reforms to taxation, healthcare and pensions, as the Czech Republic looks to adopt the euro by 2010.
The key issue on its agenda appears to be ratification of the EU constitution, an ambition complicated by the strong EU scepticism of the man who is the real power behind the new cabinet - President Vaclav Klaus.
His deep-seated doubts over the benefits of being part of the union - never mind signing a document that even EU-enthusiast France finds troublesome - could bolster the No vote in a Czech referendum which is expected next year. His Civic Democrat party is only slightly less sceptical and recent opinion polls show it to be well ahead of its rivals.
In neighbouring Poland too, a resurgent opposition has attacked the ruling party over its advocacy of the constitution.
"The consequences of not ratifying the European constitution will be a crisis and the possibility of divisions within the union," Mr Belka warned recently. "It will create concepts of a two- or more-tiered Europe."
But Jan Rokita - who coined the battle cry "Nice or death" when championing the voting rules fixed in the Nice Treaty and refusing those of the draft constitution - insists the constitution hinders rather than helps EU integration.
He is the leader of the right-wing Civic Platform party that is likely to win elections later this year, having capitalised on the inability of Mr Belka's centre-left SLD to stop bickering and escape a quagmire of lurid corruption scandals.
On current form, Civic Platform will probably build a new government with the more conservative Law and Justice party, leaving the left-wingers struggling to even garner the 4 per cent of votes necessary to make it into parliament.
Mr Belka has been searching for a way off the SLD's sinking ship for some time and may find it in a new party recently unveiled by some of his allies.
He supports early elections that the SLD has no chance of winning without the support of former leader President Alexander Kwasniewski, who fought hard last year to win the best possible terms in the constitution.
Surveys show Poles and Czechs remain generally strong supporters of the EU but the voice of scepticism is rising, an echo of what is being heard in France.