The European Parliament celebrated, on Wednesday 24 April in Strasbourg, the 20th anniversary of the biggest enlargement of the European Union, when, on the 1st of May 2004, ten countries from Central, Eastern and Mediterranean Europe joined the EU: Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia (see EUROPE 8698/4).
The President of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, spoke of the “transformative effect” of enlargement, both for the societies of the countries joining the EU and for those of countries already in the EU. She welcomed the fact that, despite the challenges and crises, Europeans had resisted the temptation “to go at it alone”.
Several political figures who lived through the 2004 enlargement while holding political positions in the ten countries concerned and in the EU institutions recalled the importance, for them, of this event that definitively reunited a continent separated during the Cold War.
Former President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, stressed that the EU is “a voluntary union of free and sovereign peoples” and that the Brexit was, in its own way, concrete proof of this. He said that the European elections in June offered citizens a choice between “concerted continuity or drastic discontinuity”.
Former President of the European Commission, Italy’s Romano Prodi, considered that the 2004 enlargement constituted “a democratic contract” between the countries joining and those already members, and not an export of democracy from West to East. In his view, a positive response should be given to the “desire” for the EU expressed by the candidate countries.
In the same vein, the current President, Ursula von der Leyen, spoke of this “will to unify Europe and complete our Union (....), which is stronger than ever”, citing the Western Balkans, Ukraine, Moldavia and Georgia. And warned that: “What is happening in Ukraine will forever shape the future of our Union. We cannot overlook and we cannot overstate that Russia poses an existential threat not only to Ukraine, but also to Europe. A Putin win would not only change the map, it would not only mask the face of the Ukrainian nation, but it would change the course of European history. Our Union would never be the same”.
At the ceremony, ten young people born in 2004 from each of the countries that joined the EU in 2004 were present in the Chamber to talk about what being a European citizen means to them. In particular, they discussed freedom of movement, working in another Member State, and peace and security in the face of external threats. (Original version in French by Mathieu Bion)