Croatia · 25th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement

The enlargement of the European Union on 1 May 2004 was the result of a long-standing process of political and legal rapprochement. Cyprus, Malta, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Hungary, Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania were admitted. With their accession, the Union grew to 25 member states.

For the applicant states, admission was tied to political and economic conditions. These included stable democratic institutions, respect for the rule of law and human rights, a functioning market economy, and the ability to apply the common legislation of the European Union. The accession negotiations therefore covered numerous policy areas, from agriculture and competition to the justice system.

The enlargement changed Europe’s political map. Several of the new member states had previously belonged to the communist sphere of influence and had fundamentally restructured their governmental and economic systems since the end of the Cold War. Their accession linked these states institutionally with the Western and Southern European members and presented the Union with new challenges in decision-making procedures, economic convergence and regional development.

Croatia was not yet part of the European Union in 2004. The country submitted its application for accession in 2003, received candidate country status in 2004 and joined the Union in 2013. The Croatian commemorative coin thus relates the 2004 enlargement to the subsequent admission of its own country. The occasion also refers to the gradual development of the European Union from a community with a limited number of members into an association of states whose enlargement took place over several stages.