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 different dates. The coins differ only in the legend, which appears in the respective national language.

On 1 May 2004, the European Union embarked on its largest enlargement round: ten states — including Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, the three Baltic republics, as well as Malta and Cyprus — became members simultaneously. This so-called "big bang" accession was the result of a years-long rapprochement process that had begun with the end of the Cold War and the collapse of communist governments in Central and Eastern Europe. For Germany, as a direct neighbour of several candidate countries, the enlargement carried particular geopolitical and economic significance: regions previously separated by the Iron Curtain now grew together within a shared internal market, and border controls with Poland and the Czech Republic were lifted a few years later with Schengen accession.

The 2004 EU enlargement fundamentally changed the institutional structure of the Union. The European Parliament grew to 732 members, the Commission was reconstituted, and voting weights in the Council shifted considerably. At the same time, questions of cohesion policy and structural funds gained importance, since the new member states' GDP was on average significantly below the EU average. In the two decades since accession, the economic gap has narrowed noticeably in many regions — Poland, for instance, now ranks among the EU's most economically dynamic countries. In 2029, Germany marks the 25th anniversary of this enlargement with a 2-euro commemorative coin, recalling an event that has profoundly shaped today's Europe.