25 Years of EU Enlargement

25th Anniversary of the 2004 EU Enlargement

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

On 11 March 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare independence — a step that was initially not recognised internationally and to which Moscow responded with an economic blockade. It was only after the failed August coup of 1991 that state sovereignty was finally secured. In the following years, Lithuania underwent a profound transformation: privatisation, currency reform, the building of democratic institutions and gradual integration with the West shaped the 1990s. Accession to NATO and the European Union in 2004 marked the conclusion of this process — both memberships were deliberately negotiated in parallel and seen as strategic safeguards against Russia.

On 1 May 2004, Lithuania joined the EU together with nine other states, including the two other Baltic republics, Estonia and Latvia. The enlargement round was the largest in the Union's history and symbolically ended the division of Europe left by the Second World War and the Cold War. Lithuania brought to the EU an economy that, despite difficult starting conditions, grew rapidly, and it positioned itself early on as a reliable partner within the Union. In 2015 the country introduced the euro, completing the monetary dimension of the integration that had begun in 2004. On the 25th anniversary of EU accession, Lithuania in 2029 commemorates this pivotal turning point in its recent history.