25 Years of EU Enlargement

25th Anniversary of the 2004 EU Enlargement

Sixth joint issue of the European Union. All 21 euro-area states are issuing a coin with the same design on varying dates. The coins differ only in the inscription, which appears in each country's national language.

On 1 May 2004, the European Union carried out the largest enlargement in its history to date: ten states joined the Union simultaneously — including Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, the three Baltic republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania, as well as Malta and Cyprus. In one stroke, the EU grew from 15 to 25 member states, and its population increased by around 75 million people. Politically, this step marked the end of the division of Europe that had persisted since the Second World War and the Cold War — countries that had spent decades behind the Iron Curtain now became part of the European internal market and its legal order.

Greece, a member of the then European Community since 1981, looks back on its own accession history, which was likewise regarded at the time as a historic new beginning. From this perspective, the Greek issue recalls a process that the country itself helped shape and carry forward: the gradual extension of an integrated Europe across the entire continent. On the 25th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement, Greece honours in 2029 an event that permanently reshaped Europe's political map.