Enlargement of the European Union

On Monday 3rd May 2004 the European Parliament gathered in Strasbourg to mark the enlarged European Union of 25 countries.

Before the formal opening of the session of the enlarged European Parliament of 787 Members, the President of the European Parliament, Pat Cox, and the former President of Poland, Lech Walesa, led a ceremony in which the flags of the new Member States were raised alongside the flags of the old 15 Member States.

Pat Cox opened Parliament's proceedings remarking that this was a special and extraordinary moment. Quoting the words of the winner of the Nobel Prize for Literature, the Irish poet Seanus Heaney: "on a day when newcomers appear, let it be a homecoming", Pat Cox said that this day was a homecoming.

He commented that the Enlargement would have seemed an impossible dream in early 1989, but now those dreams have come true. It was a wonderful moment, he said.

Pat Cox MEP with Lech Walesa - former Solidarity leader and President of Poland 1990-95.

The flags of the 10 new EU countries are unfurled.

The flag of Slovakia is raised.

The European Parliament in Strasbourg.