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The European Union's commissioner for enlargement Guenter Verheugen has warned that a second rejection of the EU's Nice Treaty in an Irish referendum later this year would lead to a delay in the bloc's plans to expand to the east. Mr Verheugen told reporters a second "no" vote would cause extremely serious problems for which he had no solutions. He said the EU had no "plan B" should ratification fail. Up to 10 countries - including the Czech Republic - are hoping to join the EU in 2004. The Nice Treaty implements reforms the EU says are needed in order to admit more states. Last June's referendum in Ireland - the only EU member to require a referendum on the issue - rejected the treaty, amid fears of a threat to Ireland's neutrality and concern that smaller states would lose out.

The Czech Republic is now entering the final stage of its accession talks with the European Union, the chief Czech negotiator with the EU, Pavel Telicka, said on Friday. Mr Telicka said that the main outstanding areas to be discussed were support for agriculture in new member countries and budgetary and financial resolutions. The general elections which take place in the Czech Republic next weekend will not have any bearing on the country's plans to join the EU, said Mr Telicka. The Czech Republic is hoping to join the union in 2004.

With just a week to go before general elections are held here in the Czech Republic, a poll suggests that 61 percent of Czechs are not satisfied with the state of politics in the country. The findings of the poll, which was conducted at the end of May by the CVVM polling agency, are similar to those recorded the previous month. The latest polls of party support suggest that the governing Social Democrats are slightly ahead of the right of centre Civic Democrats.

A second opinion poll to be released this week has claimed that the ruling Social Democrats are slightly ahead of the opposition Civic Democrats as general elections in the Czech Republic approach. The survey, conducted by the state-funded Centre for Public Opinion Research (CVVM), put the ruling Social Democrats on almost 22 percent of the vote, and the Civic Democrats in second with just under 20 percent. The results echo a poll released on Wednesday by the Sofres-Factum agency. The narrow gap between the two leading parties suggests that neither will win an outright majority, meaning that the next government could be formed by a coalition.