Celebrations Across EU Mark Historic Enlargement

In Budapest, three bridges across the Danube River were closed off for partying. In Berlin, the area around the Brandenburg Gate was cordoned off for a two-day street festival and the tiny nation of Malta launched the biggest fireworks display of all the new EU members.

At the stroke of midnight on Friday, and nearly six years after entry negotiations started, the EU's starry blue flags were hoisted over ten new nations. Most are former Warsaw Pact members: the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The other two newcomers to the European club, the island nations of Malta and Cyprus, were never under Soviet influence.

"Five decades after our great project of European integration began, the divisions of the Cold War are gone -- once and for all," European Commission chief Romano Prodi told reporters.

"Good day, Europe," was the headline in Pravda, a daily newspaper in Slovakia. The country's lawmakers convened a special session of parliament where its chairman, Pavol Hrusovsky, reminded the nation of its progress since throwing off the yoke of communism in 1989.

Pop open the champagne

Other nations were more in the mood for a raucous party.

In Cyprus, two days of celebrations kicked off, including fireworks, dancing and bands playing traditional music.

Further north in Prague, the party started in Wenceslas Square, where scores of people gathered at the site of the pro-democracy demonstrations that triggered the country's Velvet Revolution and ended communist rule there in 1989.

Wojtek Luranc, a 25-year old from Poland, had come to Prague for the weekend with his wife "to celebrate the day in the capital city of our neighbor," he told the AFP press agency.

"It's a great day," he said. "We have waited for this moment for 60 years."

He and the other party-goers enjoyed a fireworks show at midnight and on Saturday the country's prime minister, Vladimir Spidla, meets his German and Polish counterparts for ceremonies at Zittau, the German town located where the borders of Germany, Poland and the Czech Republic meet.

On Friday in Budapest, a 15-foot yellow water polo ball was rolled onto the central Elizabeth Bridge along with huge posters of Hungary's water polo players -- and models dressed up like them (photo) -- to show off the country's sporting achievements. At midnight, Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy turned over a 25-foot hourglass.

In Lithuania, leaders asked citizens to light candles at midnight, to show that their country is the brightest of all the new members. A U.S. satellite was in position to take pictures of the glowing country from space.

A series of festivities called the "Day of Welcomes" was scheduled for Ireland, which currently holds the EU's rotating presidency. The Dublin night sky was lit up by what has been billed the "world's largest online artwork."

Heads of state from the 25 EU countries were invited to the festivities and the Irish police staged a huge security operation, since officials feared anti-globalization protestors could try to crash the party. Some 2,500 soldiers were put on stand-by and all police leave was cancelled.

Underlying concern

But underlying all the merry-making are real worries among some in both new and old EU countries that this big bang could do more harm than good.

It is perhaps telling that most of the old EU member states have little planned to mark the expansion.

To counter widespread fears that the western economies will suffer as jobs move over to low-wage new accession states, German Chancellor Gerhard Schröder made a nationally broadcast speech in which he sought to allay concerns. Greater trade across an enlarged Europe "will make us not poorer, but richer," Schröder said.

Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, a country with an often wary attitude toward the bloc, commented in The Times of London that the expansion was "a catalyst for change within the EU."

Even in the new member states, whose populations are generally more enthusiastic about expansion than those in the current EU-15, there is some lingering ambivalence.

Some people fear steep rises in the prices of consumer goods or being swallowed up in a faceless EU and ruled over by "eurocrats" in Brussels. Alongside the party at Wenceslas Square, a group of avowed "euro skeptics" have promised to hold a mock funeral to bury Czech sovereignty.