PRAGUE, Czech Republic (AP) - The European Union expanded at midnight Friday to take in a region isolated during the Cold War. Church bells rang and fireworks lit up the sky over eastern Europe to celebrate the bold new era.
The historic enlargement created a collective economic giant rivaling the United States. It brings in much of the ex-communist East - a region separated for decades from the West by barbed wire and Soviet ideology.
Hundreds of thousands of jubilant revelers packed city squares in the newcomer nations, whose entry after overcoming tyranny 15 years ago was hailed 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.
In a landmark speech to Poland's parliament, German President Johannes Rau said expansion signaled a new era in the two countries' histories, which were blackened by the Nazi occupation.
"A completely new chapter in our relationship as neighbors is beginning, a new epoch with great possibilities and wide-reaching perspectives," Rau said, adding that the newcomers would keep Europe vibrant.
Enlargement fulfills a vision "for Europe, free and united," said Denmark's prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen.
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, 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."
Hungarian Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy attended the ringing of a towering sculpture incorporating two bells - one forged in 1496, the other in 1596 - symbolizing unity and a return to Europe.
Hungary "was always at the gates of Europe and will continue to be," Medgyessy said. "But the significant difference is that now we are inside the gates."
Friday's celebrations were tempered by fears in the newcomers 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.
"Joining the EU is a necessary evil," said Zsolt Meszaros, 35, a Budapest doctor. "There are just too many uncertainties in all of this to make me more enthusiastic."
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."
It marks the latest step toward the West for a region dubbed the "new Europe" by U.S. Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.
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 parades and windy speeches by party apparatchiks.
"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.
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