International

20th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement. "All Europeans can be masters of their own destiny"

It is the 20th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargementa. On May 1, 2004, 10 countries joined the Community Block. These are Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.

In addition to 10 new members, the European Union has 73 million inhabitants and nine official languages, and the bloc's border moved to the east by about 1000 kilometers.

In the same wave of expansion are also included Bulgaria and Romania, which could not join in 2004 due to problems with the rule of law and corruption, but which are considered by the European Commission to be part of the fifth wave.

According to an analysis by the publication Emerging Europe, the accession of the 10 countries to the EU came with the implicit promise of economic convergence, whereby the standard of living would soon catch up with that of Western Europe.

Nearly two decades later, those expectations have largely been fulfilled, as the catch-up process that had gained momentum during the accession negotiations was given a new impetus by membership. In 2022 the GDP per capita of Estonia, Lithuania and Slovenia surpassed that of Spain. Poland beat Portugal. All the countries that joined in 2004 can now boast a GDP per capita higher than that of Greece.

By any measure, the fifth expansion wave was an absolute success. Perhaps the most obvious example is Poland. A 2023 report by the Polish Economic Institute (PEI) think tank claims that the country's GDP per capita expressed in terms of purchasing power parity (PPP) is now about 31% higher than it would have been had Poland not joined the EU.

20 years after the largest enlargement, senior European officials came with congratulatory messages. European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen called the 2004 enlargement "the birth of a new era." An era built on the promise that "all Europeans can be masters of their own destiny."

The President of the European Council pointed out that "the year 2004 marked the reunification of a divided continent, as we welcomed ten new EU member states."

Currently, nine countries have the status of candidate for the accession to the European Union. Among them are Montenegro, Serbia, Turkey, North Macedonia, Albania, Ukraine, Republic of Moldova, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Georgia.

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