Morning in the land of 75m welcomes

THE lights went on all over Europe last night as fireworks, bonfires and street parties welcomed the enlargement of the EU from 15 to 25 members.

Ireland hosts a Day of Welcomes for the newcomers, with the biggest-ever gathering of heads of state and government in Dublin today and twinning events in 10 towns and cities.

Thousands of the EU's 75 million new citizens took part in festivals in cities that little over a decade ago witnessed velvet revolutions as they shook off communism.

The blue EU flag, with its ring of 12 gold stars, has been raised at the parliaments of the 10 new members as many of them held special sittings to mark the extraordinary journey they have made.

They have reformed their political, legal and economic systems, absorbed 80,000 pages of EU laws and had economic growth rates four times that of most of the rest of the EU this year.

In this, the EU's largest enlargement, the 25 have invested in a joint future; their determined optimism, founded more on hope than anything else, that this will bring trade, jobs, security and a higher standard of living to their people.

But today, as the Taoiseach Bertie Ahern gets his footnote in history by extending a Céad Míle Fáilte to the newcomers, the doubts and rows are being put to one side. In what is a homecoming to countries that withstood 40 years of brutal regimes, they are determined to be part of the new Europe.

Of all the events to give a sense of history to the day, perhaps the most noteworthy is the gathering of three prime ministers, from Poland, Germany and the Czech Republic at a point on the border where their three countries meet.

From the border that was once the Iron Curtain, the three will fly in a German plane to Dublin for the ceremonial flag-raising at Áras an Uachtaráin.

The sense of history was captured by the speaker of the Slovak parliament, Pavol Hrusovsky, yesterday: "In 1989 we cut up the barbed wire. Pieces of this wire have for us become a symbol of the end of the totalitarian regime.

"For the generation that lived in the captivity of the barbed wire, the EU means the fulfillment of a dream."

One of those that dared to dream, Lech Walesa, said that joining the EU for him "fulfils dreams and completes a life's work".

However, the road has been a difficult one for the new member states as the costs and rewards have been spread unevenly.

Many are disappointed with the small transfers of money they won from the EU. They will not receive anything like the massive inflows of EU money Ireland got over its 30 years of membership.

They also fear their economies will be owned by the richer west who will also poach their youngest and brightest workers.

The enlargement holds fears for the EU-15 to with just Ireland, Sweden and Britain agreeing to take workers from the new 10.

However, with a population of 455m and a GDP of over €9 trillion, the EU becomes the world's biggest market and third-biggest population bloc after China and India.