With explosive echoes, twenty years ago the expression big bang to describe the imminent expansion of the European Union to the east was not liked in Brussels. There were many fears that weighed on the operation that added ten countries to the club, increased its territory by a third, added 75 million inhabitants and only five extra points of wealth. Today, the term has become normalized in academic circles and, about to reach its twentieth anniversary, the great expansion of 2004 is remembered as a historical promise fulfilled, an economic success and an incentive to reopen its doors.
Like millions of Europeans, the president of the European Parliament, the Maltese Roberta Metsola, remembers perfectly where the night was between April 30 and May 1, 2004. “In the port of Valletta, looking at the sea, we counting down the minutes and seconds until Malta, together with Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, joined the EU as member states. I will always remember the shared sense of limitless possibilities, hope and faith in the future.”
The dream of generations of a united Europe had come true. “The future, suddenly, was limitless”, recalled Metsola at the commemorative event held in the Eurochamber last week, during which he emphasized the “transformative effect” of joining the EU. “Now, a generation later, it is the people of Ukraine, the countries of the Western Balkans, Moldova and Georgia who look to Europe with the same feeling of hope and belief in our common future”. Now like ten years ago, or when the integration of Bulgaria, Romania and Croatia years later, Europe cannot look the other way”, he defended.
Freedom, mobility, cooperation and security are some of the terms evoked by the ten young people born this May 1 invited to participate in the celebration, which brought together some of the national politicians and high-ranking European officials who piloted the operation. Romano Prodi, the president of the Commission that closed the accession negotiations with the Ten, declared himself “moved” by the ceremony and the achievements achieved. “That was also a complicated time and we worked hard so that it passed without tensions or problems. It was a great milestone achieved thanks to cooperation, a lot of patience and a constructive spirit”, he recalled.
“How did you do it? How did you convince people to vote for the EU in the accession referendums?” several young people asked the venerable politicians of the time. The response of the former prime minister of Hungary, Péter Medgyessy, served to remind us that joining the EU has not been a perfect shield against authoritarian and ultra-nationalist drifts. “We succeeded in the first place because the people of Hungary have always felt European and we were fulfilling their will. The second reason may sound surprising, but we believe that your sovereignty is stronger when you are a member of the EU and being sovereign makes Hungary stronger.” Both Medgyessy and his counterparts Leszek Miller and Vladimir Spidla in Poland and the Czech Republic paid the attrition caused by adopting the EU-mandated economic reform agenda and left power soon after the entry of their countries in the club.
The World Bank has once referred to the EU as “an economic convergence machine” and the data on the effects of the great expansion to the east testify to this. All the countries that joined in 2004 are richer today. Their gross domestic product has increased by 80%, thus halving the gap that separated them from the Fifteen. Its unemployment rate has been halved and its agricultural production has tripled, according to the Commission. Fears of a migrant avalanche were not confirmed, although countries that opened their doors fully on the first day, particularly the UK, did see more arrivals.
“The main objective of the big bang was to ensure freedom, peace, a social market economy and democracy in countries that had just escaped from decades of suffocating communism. In this sense, in general, the enlargement has been a resounding success”, agrees Jules Maaten, regional director of the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, linked to the German Socialist Party, which supported the transition of these countries to democracy, that nevertheless sees problems and lessons to be learned. “The island of Cyprus remains divided and the rule of law and even liberal democracy are at least weak in some countries, especially in Orbán’s Hungary”, emphasizes Maaten, who regrets that European governments do not are ready to demand responsibility from their colleagues and believes that Brussels has allowed itself to be “blackmailed” by Orbán. “The European Commission has disappointed the citizens who counted on the EU to promote the rule of law”, he concludes.
In her speech in Strasbourg, the president of the Community Executive, Ursula von der Leyen, highlighted the “economic miracle” that accession to the EU meant for these countries. “But you have also made Europe stronger and strengthened our response to the geopolitical challenges we face”, he emphasized. “What happens in Ukraine will define the future of the Union forever”, emphasized Von der Leyen, who asked to intensify military assistance to Kyiv and recalled the commitments made.
“The decisions we take in the coming days, weeks and months will decide who wins the future of Europe. Let us remain united with Ukraine and be ambitious in enlargement and reforms. This is how we will make the European promise come true once again”, advocated Von der Leyen. “This event reminds us that the EU was successfully enlarged in the past and our message must be that we will do it again in the future”, concluded former president of the Eurochamber Pat Cox.
