DUBLIN (voa) – The European Union has officially welcomed its 10 newest members at a simple flag-raising ceremony in Dublin. The EU’s biggest ever expansion includes former communist nations that were cut off from the European mainstream by the Cold War.
Leaders from all 25 EU countries gathered on the lawn outside the residence of Ireland’s president to celebrate what many central and eastern Europeans regard as the return of their nations to the European family.
Polish President Alexander Kwasniewski, who leads the biggest of the new members, was asked by reporters how he feels after years of arduous negotiations to meet EU membership requirements.
“I’m happy because, really, this is a great day for us, for Poland, for Europe, and I think finally we will realize our dreams,” said Aleksander Kwasniewski.
For Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, joining the EU crowns more than a decade of often painful economic reforms that followed the collapse of communist rule.
Also entering the bloc Saturday were the Mediterranean island republics of Cyprus and Malta.
The formal ceremony in Dublin came after hundreds of thousands of revelers in the new member states celebrated the final closing of Europe’s east-west divide.
Ireland’s president, Mary McAleese, set the tone for a day in which the EU took a break from its routine disputes over money, power and fishing quotas.
“It’s a momentous day of celebration, when the past is laid to rest and the future is anticipated with great hope,” she said.
But as EU leaders hail their union’s latest expansion as a historic triumph, they are also worried that it will be costly and might paralyze decision-making.
The move eastward and southward increases the bloc’s population by 75 million, its territory by 25 percent but its gross domestic product by barely five percent.
The challenges the EU faces are to integrate these poorer countries, stay manageable with 25 states around the table and control immigration and organized crime as borders move east to adjoin former Soviet lands such as Russia, Ukraine and Belarus.
Dublin Castle, 1 May 2004
Taoiseach,
President Prodi,
Ministers,
Ladies and Gentlemen,
I am very pleased to address you today on behalf of the European Parliament, which has, already since May of last year, included Observers from the new Member States. It is a source of a great pride to me, as an Irish European, that when the new Europe is born, it should be born in Dublin.
This new continent-wide Europe, stretching from Dublin in the west to Lublin in the east, from the Connemara to Latgale, is witness to the success of the new Member States and those societies which have undergone a radical transformation over the last 15 years. It is also the result of the determined and consistent effort by successive Presidencies, Member States and the European institutions, who have overcome obstacles on the road and provided sustained leadership for the earliest possible enlargement.
Fifty years ago a generation of European leaders, after a devastating war that divided our continent, saw all too clearly what was, but were prepared to dream of what could be. They had the courage of their European convictions. They opened for Europe a pathway to creative reconciliation and progress which none had walked before. We are the beneficiaries of that legacy and of their foresight. With the ceremony today we give a new meaning, a new raison d’être to and a new vindication of that vision.
I acknowledge today the leadership and determination of peoples and successive governments in the new member states. Today the transforming generation of leaders is awarded a glittering prize.
Now a new challenge faces leaders to spread the benefits of accession, to use the access to markets to engender prosperity and prepare for entry into the EMU. To achieve this, the new members need to be able to count on the solidarity of others.
The new member states will now be firmly anchored in the community of values, which inform and permeate the public purpose of the Union. Their rightful place at the heart of this community will also give them new confidence, new dynamism, which will generate positive effects on the whole Union.
In time, it will help us to rediscover of the spirit of 1989, that annus mirabilis, which has since yielded in some places to feelings of uncertainty, and some economic hardship. The dynamic young societies of many member states, their courage to transform, their entrepreneurial spirit will, I hope, help us all to strengthen the dynamic of the Union itself and reinforce its global role, including and perhaps especially towards our new neighbours in the South and in the East.
Robert Schuman once wrote that an Irish saint, Saint Columbanus, was “the patron saint of those who seek to construct a united Europe”. I recall the story because in the sixth and early part of the seventh century this abbott, poet, scholar and preacher – not the only Irish one to so do – co-founded western monasticism in early medieval Europe, travelling among the Franks, the Swabians, and the Lombards. His remains today lie and are celebrated still in Bobbio in Italy, where I made a personal pilgrimage some few days ago.
One thousand four hundred years ago, this early Irish European, in a letter exhorting the Pope to ‘arise from his sleep’, described the Irish as ultimi habitatores mundi, – the inhabitants of the world’s edge. It is a powerful message that his life has given to the enlarging Europe. His is an inclusive message, for a Europe which is home to all its peoples and to all its citizens.
