Agriculture Minister Adam Tanski quit on Thursday, falling victim to a combination of power politics and in-fighting over farm reforms before European Union accession next year, Gazeta Wyborcza reported.

At a hastily convened news conference Prime Minister Leszek Miller said that he had accepted Tanski's resignation, but did not name a successor. Roman Jagielinski, leader of a small rural party which helped Miller's left-wing minority government win a parliamentary confidence vote this month, was widely tipped to land the job.

Tanski, a non-party technocrat hired for the job three months ago, quit after attempting to purge the bureaucracy being created to distribute billions of euros in farm aid after Poland joins the EU. ''We face an enormous amount of work - and no agriculture minister can carry it out without political support,'' Tanski told reporters. Tanski's resignation is Poland's eighth ministerial departure this year.

On Thursday the EU struck a major deal to reform its farming policy, in which subsidies will be in part separated from production. His departure precedes this weekend's annual party congress of Miller's ruling Democratic Left Alliance, where the prime minister could face criticism for the government's slumping popularity but is not expected to face a leadership challenge.

(NewsBase 30.vi.03)