25 Years of EU Enlargement

25th Anniversary of the 2004 EU Enlargement.

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

On 1 May 2004, the largest enlargement round in the history of the European Union to date took effect: ten states — including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, the three Baltic states of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Malta and Cyprus — became EU members simultaneously. For many of the acceding countries, especially those in Central and Eastern Europe, this step marked the end of decades of political division of the continent drawn by the Cold War. The 2004 enlargement was the result of an accession process lasting nearly ten years, launched after the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989 and accompanied by extensive political and economic reforms in the candidate countries.

Finland, itself an EU member only since 1995, followed the 2004 enlargement with particular interest: as a direct neighbour of Estonia with close historical ties to the Baltic region, the country had a direct interest in a stable, integrated neighbourhood. In Helsinki, the accession of the Baltic states was regarded as an important step for security and foreign policy across the entire Baltic Sea region. With its commemorative coin marking the 25th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement, Finland in 2029 recalls a date that permanently changed Europe's political map and whose economic, demographic and institutional consequences are still felt today.