Fireworks dazzled and
street parties reverberated across Europe yesterday
as the clock ticked down to the continent's historic
reunification with the European Union set to admit
10 new members at midnight.
Hundreds of thousands thronged open-air celebrations,
concerts and border ceremonies from the Atlantic to
the Baltic and the Mediterranean as political leaders
hailed the closing of Europe's Cold War divide, 15
years after the Berlin Wall fell.
Star-studded blue EU flags were hoisted in eight central
and east European states that endured decades of Soviet-dominated
communist rule, and on the Mediterranean islands of
Cyprus and Malta, which join the wealthy 15-nation
west European bloc.
"We are returning to where we belong, to a community
that shares the same values and visions," said
Prime Minister Juhan Parts of Estonia, a former Soviet
republic.
Leaders of the new 25-nation bloc, representing 450
million citizens, hold a ceremonial summit in Dublin
today to celebrate the birth of the world's biggest
trading bloc, rivalling the United States.
For East Europeans in Poland, the Czech Republic,
Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania,
enlargement crowns 15 years of often painful economic
reforms since the collapse of communist rule.
"For the generation that lived in the communist
prison surrounded by barbed wire, the European Union
is a dream come true. Fifteen years ago we would not
even have dared dream this dream," Slovakian parliament
speaker Pavol Hrusovsky said.
EU enlargement was to take effect officially at 2200
GMT but the former Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia
and Lithuania, and Cyprus, began to celebrate entry
an hour earlier, since they lie in a time zone east
of the bulk of continental Europe. One of the fathers
of European reunification, former German Chancellor
Helmut Kohl, told thousands at a ceremony in Zittau
on the German-Czech-Polish border: "The message
is there will never again be war in Europe."
Jubilation was more muted in Cyprus after split referendums
last Saturday meant the Greek Cypriot south of the
island joins the EU despite rejecting a UN peace plan,
while the Turkish Cypriot north remains excluded despite
voting "yes".
Ireland, a rags-to-riches model of the benefits of
EU membership, which holds the bloc's rotating presidency,
staged a spectacular firework display in Dublin last
night and planned a "Day of Welcomes" for
the newcomers today.
"This is the endgame of the process which was
started in 1988-89. Those countries that were behind
the Iron Curtain... for them, tomorrow ends all of
that terrible period," Prime Minister Bertie Ahern
said.
In the first of a string of events spread out over
two days, the leaders of Austria, Italy and Slovenia
shook hands at the 1,500 metre Tromeja summit in the
Alps where their countries' borders meet.
Addressing their parliaments or in interviews, leaders
hailed enlargement as a historic triumph, while trying
to allay fears it would be costly and paralysing for
the rich club.
German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder, who helped stoke
such fears by complaining about the new members' much
lower tax rates, said Germany stood to gain the most
as it will be surrounded by allies, friends and economic
partners.
The EU's biggest expansion will increase the bloc's
population by 75 million, its territory by 25 per cent
but its gross domestic product by barely five per cent.
The EU faces profound change as it tries to integrate
poorer countries, stay manageable with 25 states around
the table, and control immigration and organised crime
as borders move 1,000 km eastwards to adjoin Belarus,
Russia and Ukraine.
Just as reconciliation between France and Germany
paved the way to the EU's creation in 1957, enlargement
now crowns Polish and German efforts to overcome their
past.
German President Johannes Rau told Poles yesterday
the two nations were bound to a common destiny.
"For Poles and Germans, tomorrow begins a completely
new chapter in our relations as neighbours - a new
era of great opportunities and far-reaching possibilities," he
told the Warsaw parliament. "Without Poland, Europe
would not be Europe."
Alongside the official pomp and street parties, some
unorthodox celebrations were planned.
Lithuanians will switch on lights countrywide to make
the land glow on satellite pictures; Hungarians will
dump unwanted belongings in a pile at a central Budapest
square. In Estonia, 20,000 volunteers will start planting
a million trees.
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