25 Years of EU Enlargement

25th Anniversary of the 2004 EU Enlargement

Sixth joint issue of the European Union. All 21 eurozone states are issuing a coin with the same design on varying dates. The coins differ only in their inscriptions, which appear in the respective national language.

1 May 2004 marks one of the most profound turning points in the history of the European Union: with the simultaneous accession of ten states — including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta and Cyprus itself — the EU grew from 15 to 25 members. This so-called eastern enlargement ended the political division of Europe left by the Second World War and the Cold War. For Cyprus, accession also meant a return to the European framework, even as the country has remained de facto divided since 1974, with the question of reunification still unresolved today. EU membership was seen then, as now, as a stabilising anchor for the Greek Cypriot south.

Cyprus, the third-largest island in the Mediterranean, was required during the accession process to implement extensive reforms in administration, the economy and the legal system. In the years that followed, the country benefited from the internal market and EU structural funds, but also went through a severe banking crisis that led to a European bailout programme in 2013. Looking back on 25 years of EU membership therefore yields an ambivalent picture: economic integration, political inclusion and structural modernisation on one side, unresolved territorial conflicts and external shocks on the other. In 2029, Cyprus marks this anniversary as one of the smallest EU members, with a population of around one million people — and a history that stands as an emblem of the complexity of European integration.