Bulgaria · 25th anniversary of the 2004 EU enlargement

With the enlargement in 2004, the European Union admitted ten additional states: Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Czechia (Tschechien), Slovakia, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta and Cyprus. The number of Member States thereby rose from 15 to 25. Accession took place on 1 May 2004; the accession treaties had already been signed in Athens the previous year.

This was preceded by years of negotiations and adjustments to the legal and economic systems of the acceding countries. The so-called Copenhagen criteria formed the basis. Among other things, they required stable democratic institutions, respect for the rule of law and human rights, and a functioning market economy. The new Member States also had to adopt the extensive body of common European Union law.

The enlargement also had a European political dimension. Several of the acceding countries had belonged to the Soviet-dominated sphere of influence until the end of the Cold War. Their accession further overcame the political division of Europe that had emerged after the Second World War. At the same time, a larger common internal market was created, extending the free movement of goods, persons, services and capital to the new Member States.

Bulgaria was not part of this first group. The country joined the European Union together with Romania on 1 January 2007. The commemoration of the 2004 enlargement is therefore also connected with Bulgaria’s own subsequent accession and with the longer process through which the Union expanded eastwards and south-eastwards.

The choice of this occasion for a commemorative coin is explained by the European significance of this enlargement. It marked not only the accession of individual states, but also a turning point in the development of the Union and its relations with the Central and Eastern European countries.