EU Enlargement 1989-2009: Actors, Institutions, and Literature
Journal: MURAL - Maynooth University Research Archive Library (National University of Ireland, Maynooth)
Year: 2012

On 1 May 2004 at a historic, if understated, signing ceremony in Dublin the European Union (EU) formally recognized the accession to the Union of ten new states. These were the Mediterranean ‘micro’ states of Cyprus and Malta, and eight new members from Central and Eastern Europe(CEE) –the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia – which, for more than fifty years, had been cut off from the European integration process by virtue of their geopolitical im