EU: The Polish Prime Minister, Mr Leszek Miller, battled severe pain yesterday to fight his country's corner at a European Union summit he refused to skip despite fracturing his spine in a helicopter crash last week.
"The Prime Minister can lie down. He can also walk, but it's difficult for him to sit. It is a challenge at a summit," said his spokesman, Mr Marcin Kaszuba.
Poland is a key player in a dispute over the formulation of a new EU constitution because of its fierce opposition, along with Spain, to a proposed voting reform that would take more account of population size.
Helped by the Luxembourg Prime Minister, Mr Jean-Claude Juncker, Mr Miller (57) walked slowly and stiffly into the summit centre.
Poland is clinging to a vote weighting that gives it almost as much power as Germany, which has twice as many people.
Mr Miller was greeted warmly by two of his main adversaries in the fight over voting power, President Jacques Chirac of France and the German Chancellor, Mr Gerhard Schröder.
His doctor, Dr Wieslaw Marszal, said he had brought a special orthopaedic bed to which the Prime Minister would retire every fourth hour during the negotiations to ease muscle tension and pain around two vertebrae fractured in the crash.
President Aleksander Kwasniewski had offered to replace Mr Miller at the summit but the Prime Minister was determined to attend. - (Reuters)