The flags of the 25 member states of the European Union on display in Dublin. Europe stood proudly reunited as 10 nations in eastern Europe and the Mediterranean took their places in the EU. Photo by AFP
Eight former communist countries and two Mediterranean islands joined the European Union today in a historic reunification of western and eastern Europe 15 years after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
Poland, Hungary, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Cyprus and Malta officially joined the EU at midnight central European time.
This biggest ever enlargement makes the new 25-member EU the world's most powerful single trading bloc with 450 million citizens producing nearly one quarter of global wealth.
The national flags of the ten new members will be hoisted in the evening.