Two decades have passed since the great enlargement of the European Union (EU) on May 1, 2004, comprising the accession of 10 countries, eight of them Central European states. Seen from Poland, whose citizens voted 77.5% in favor of accession in a referendum held a year earlier, it's hard to see these years as anything other than a huge success. The country made full use of opportunities offered by the European project, perceived from the outset by the Poles as a great – and just – return to the Western family after the "betrayal of Yalta," the 1945 conference that split Europe in two and deprived Poland of its sovereignty.
The result is spectacular. Since 2004, Poland's GDP per capita has risen from 49% to 82% of the EU average. Its GDP, in absolute terms, has grown by 170%, the minimum wage has been multiplied by five, to reach the equivalent of €950, and the average wage multiplied by three, to €1,450. Deducting its contribution to the European budget, the country has received a net value of €170 billion under the cohesion policy and the common agricultural policy. Poland also attracted nearly 45% of the €590 billion in foreign investment directed towards the eight countries in the region.
Enlargement has been beneficial in both directions. Western European states have reaped the full benefits of an enlarged common market and its outlets. German exports to the Visegrad countries (Poland, Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia) now exceed those to China.
'Civilizational leap'
Poland now seems to be at the end of its "20 glorious years," a period of development comparable to that experienced by France in the 30 years after the Second World War. It ranks as the European Union's sixth-largest economy, despite not being part of the eurozone. On the occasion of this 20th anniversary, the Polish Economic Institute imagined a development scenario in which Central Europe did not join the EU. According to this report, the country's GDP is 40% higher thanks to membership. Of the eight states analyzed, only Lithuania scored better, with 60%.
Yet despite this undeniable success, described in Poland as a "civilizational leap," the mood in Warsaw is not celebratory. The euphoria and tears of joy of an entire generation, whose images left a lasting impression at midnight on May 1, 2004, are no more than a memory. After the parliamentary elections of October 15, 2023, marked by the return to power of former European Council president Donald Tusk, the country is in the process of a new "democratic revolution," putting an end to eight years of power by a nationalist and authoritarian right-wing represented by the Law and Justice party (PiS). Still, that period has left deep scars on Polish society.
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