Polish political parties often take a stand on issues related to the European Union. The subject of European integration, however, was not a priority issue in the programmes of the main parties running in the 2001 parliamentary elections. The topics most important to the electorate were questions of how the individual parties proposed to deal with such burning issues as unemployment or “the hole in the budget”, and it was issues like these that dominated in all campaign programme documents. Nevertheless, some of the formations running in the elections devoted much attention to the European Union, for example, the Democratic Left Alliance – Union of Labour (SLD-UP) coalition, the Freedom Union (UW) or the Polish Peasants’ Party (PSL). For somewhat different reasons (opposition to EU accession), similar attention was given to this issue by the League of Polish Families (LPR). Less attention was given to European issues in programmes of other parties, such as the Citizens’ Platform (PO), Law and Justice (PiS) and Solidarity of the Right Election Action (AWSP). There were also cases of campaign programme documents that did not contain even the slightest mention of the EU. An example of such was the “Programme propositions...” of the Polish Farmers’ Self-defence (Samoobrona RP). The election campaign programmes (with one exception) provided information on the party’s position with respect to Poland’s membership in the European Union. Among the political formations running in the 2001 elections, there were “Euro-enthusiasts” – SLD-UP, UW and PO, and “Euro-realists”, a term coined by Samoobrona RP, – PSL, PiS, AWSP, as well as those expressing reservations – Samoobrona RP, and the anti-European formation – the LPR. The campaign programme documents took up many issues connected with Poland’s integration in the European Union. The most important included: negotiation priorities, the launching of the information campaign on the EU and development of the educational programme about Europe, the problem of the harmonisation of Polish law with Union standards, Poland’s foreign policy after accession in the EU, and finally the protection of Polish interests, values and national identity as well as the building of a “Europe of nation-states”.