Thousands celebrate as European Union nears its historic expansion

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) _ Hundreds of thousands of people across the ``new Europe'' celebrated with street festivals in a jubilant countdown Friday to the European Union's historic enlargement.

Friday, April 30th 2004, 12:00 am

By: News On 6

PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) _ Hundreds of thousands of people across the ``new Europe'' celebrated with street festivals in a jubilant countdown Friday to the European Union's historic enlargement.

Dozens of events were to culminate with spectacular fireworks displays in the 10 newcomer nations at midnight _ 6 p.m. EDT _ when the EU becomes a potential economic and political powerhouse of 25 nations and 450 million citizens.

The mood was festive in the Czech Republic and the other nine mostly ex-communist countries, whose accession after decades of Cold War-era isolation was praised by EU leaders as ``the end of the artificial divisions of the last century.''

The EU's ``Big Bang'' expansion brings in the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia, along with Cyprus and Malta, which were never in the Soviet orbit.

EU heads of state were gathering in Ireland, which is wrapping up its EU presidency, for a formal ``Day of Welcomes'' in Dublin on Saturday.

Hans-Gert Poettering, a German politician who leads the conservative faction in the European Parliament, called enlargement ``the EU's greatest political success.''

``It means that for the first time in European history peace can be ensured for the long term,'' he said Friday. ``This is the definitive end of the hegemony of states in Europe.''

The EU flag _ a circle of yellow stars on a blue field _ went up Friday outside government offices in many newcomer countries, and newspapers greeted membership with banner headlines.

``Good day, Europe,'' tiny Slovakia's Pravda daily said on its front page.

Slovak lawmakers convened a special session of parliament, where chairman Pavol Hrusovsky reminded the nation how far it has come since shaking off communism in 1989.

``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,'' he said. ``For the generation which lived in captivity of the barbed wire, the EU means a fulfillment of a dream.''

Friday's celebrations were tempered by fears in the newcomer nations of steep price increases for consumer goods, and worries in the EU's 15 core member states of a flood of immigrants as national borders gradually disappear.

In a nationally broadcast speech, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder sought to allay concerns among Germans that lower-paid workers from neighboring Poland and other eastern countries threaten their jobs.

Greater trade across the enlarged Europe ``will make us not poorer, but richer,'' Schroeder said.

British Prime Minister Tony Blair, in a commentary for Friday's editions of The Times of London, called the expansion _ Europe's most significant political shift since World War II _ ``a catalyst for change within the EU.''

Scores of celebrants began gathering early in Prague's central Wenceslas Square, the site of mass demonstrations that ended communism in former President Vaclav Havel's 1989 Velvet Revolution.

Bands from across Europe were setting up for a night of concerts featuring traditional music. But underscoring lingering ambivalence among those who fear being swallowed up in a faceless EU, a group of avowed ``Euro-skeptics'' planned a mock funeral to ``bury'' Czech sovereignty.

Others were clearly turned off that enlargement officially takes effect on a May 1 _ the day that communist regimes across eastern Europe forced citizens to turn out for dreary Labor Day parades and windy speeches by party apparatchik.

``I'm leaving town. I never took part in any of those `celebrations' in the old days and I won't take part of them now,'' said Jan Molik, a Prague lawyer.

But the mood was mostly light.

The organizers of Lithuania's EU celebrations asked citizens to help the country literally outshine the other newcomer nations by turning on all their lights and building bonfires shortly before midnight.

An American satellite was to photograph the region and beam the images back to the Baltic country.