The Hindu : International : Joyous welcome for new members

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Sunday, May 02, 2004

International

International

Joyous welcome for new members

By Hasan Suroor

LONDON, MAY 1. After a night of fireworks and Beethoven's "Ode to Joy'' being played across European capitals, 10 new countries formally joined the European Union on Saturday, with Ireland which holds its current presidency, rolling out the red carpet for them at a ceremony held in Dublin to herald the E.U.'s biggest expansion in nearly 50 years.

Leaders of the `old' and `new' Europe raised toasts to each other, and to the spirit of an age that saw eight former Soviet states entering the heart of Europe. Some of them were not even full-fledged countries until barely a decade ago, and despite the show of camaraderie witnessed in Dublin on Saturday, many of them may feel like poor cousins on the high table dominated by the Big Boys — Germany, France and Britain.

For the leaders of the new member-countries — Poland, Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Slovakia and Slovenia — who gathered at Dublin Castle amid unprecedented security it was a momentous event.

And Dublin was on a high with champagne billed as the drink of the day. Bleak weather failed to dent the spirits of the occasion as leaders promised to heal the divisions of the Cold War.

The President of the European Commission hailed it as a "historic and joyous day'' and the Irish Prime Minister, Bertie Ahern, said it marked the "closure of one chapter in European history and the opening of another'' — a sentiment that was heard again and again as the spirit of the day caught on.

Adjectives came easily — E.U. was now the world's `biggest' trading bloc; it was the `biggest' show of European solidarity; and it was the `first' time Dublin was playing host to such a `historic' gathering.

With the entry of the new members, the E.U. now boasts 25 members representing a population of 455 millions from vastly distinctive cultures and uneven economies. Europhobes seized on it to revive fears about large-scale immigration from the less developed member-countries to the more affluent E.U. nations.

In Britain, the Prime Minister, Tony Blair, was locked in a life-and-death political struggle with Eurosceptics who accused him of `surrendering' the country's sovereignty to a "European super-state'', and called for his Government to be defeated in the proposed referendum over the European Constitution.

But on a day when the dominant talk was of a "new dawn'' over Europe, they had few listeners.

Maybe, tomorrow will be another day.

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