Europe reunited

2004-05-01 12:25

Dublin - Europe stood proudly reunited on Saturday almost six decades after it was split in two by the Cold War, as 10 nations in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean took their places in the European Union.

The once-communist states of the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia officially joined the EU family at the stroke of midnight Central European summer time.

Mediterranean islands Cyprus and Malta joined them, rounding out what is indisputable the world's biggest single trading entity, with a total population of 455 million.

The European Union thus enters into a new and uncharted era, five decades after it rose out of the trauma of World War II as a force for peaceful partnership between France, Germany Italy and the Benelux nations.

"Welcome to the new Europe," trumpeted European Commission president Romano Prodi.

Spectacular firework displays lit up the night sky across the new Europe as Beethoven's "Ode to Joy", the triumphant EU anthem, rang out at the start of a weekend of celebrations in eastern capitals.

The 25 national flags of the expanded EU were to be unfurled on Saturday in Dublin at a ceremonial welcome given by the EU's Irish presidency for assembled heads of state and government.

"Five decades after our great project of European integration began, the divisions of the Cold War are gone once and for all and we live in a united Europe," Prodi said in a statement.

The new members had already begun to party hours before the midnight "big bang" - although the enlargement was clouded by the failure of Cyprus to join as a unified island.

Poland, by far the biggest of the 10 newcomers, hoisted the starred blue EU flag at the tomb of the unknown soldier in Warsaw.

Dreams becoming a reality

"Welcome to a united Europe," President Aleksander Kwasniewski said. "Dreams are becoming a reality."

In Prague, on a stage bedecked with EU flags, Czech Prime Minister Vladimir Spidla called EU accession "the end of a long and difficult journey" that began with the Prague Spring rebellion against Soviet domination in 1968.

People in the three Baltic states burst into song to celebrate joining the EU, 14 years after their so-called Singing Revolution of passive resistance against Soviet subjugation.

"Latvia has prepared for the EU, Latvia has strived and argued and achieved a result. Now it is time to celebrate," President Vaira-Vike Freiberga told a crowd of 30 000 new Europeans gathered on the banks of Riga's Daugava river.

Few sites were more emblematic of Europe's far-reaching changes than the shared border between Austria, Italy and Slovenia, where officials of the three countries gathered on Friday for a mountain-top celebration.

The map of the new Europe now extends to the borders of Russia and Ukraine, as well as Bulgaria, Romania and Turkey - the latter all official candidates to join the bloc.

- SAPA