EU: Any illusion that today's festivities will end all this talk about 'enlargement' is precisely that, an illusion.
The EU is open to membership to any 'European' country that meets certain political and economic criteria. The possible number of members of the EU is therefore theoretically well over 40. In the short term, three other countries are lined up to be members in the near future. Bulgaria and Romania will, so long as there are no major problems, be members as early as 2007.
The third part of that threesome, Turkey, is more problematic. Proposed Turkish membership of the EU has been and continues to be one of the most divisive elements in EU affairs. Turkey first applied to join in 1959 and since then progressive forces within the country have been implementing reforms - particularly in relation to the Kurdish minority - and have advanced their arguments for these by referring to the ultimate goal of EU membership.
Many of the criticisms of Turkey's membership focus on its perceived status as a 'Muslim' country. However, Turkey is an avowedly secular republic, not a Islamic state. While many Turks are practising Muslims, Islam is no more a state religion in Turkey than Christianity is in France. Many people profess religious belief privately, as in France, but there is a very rigid distinction between the religious private sphere and its manifestation in public. The current Turkish government has Islamist roots - but it has gained power, and retained it, by in effect jettisoning much of that Islamist past and conforming to Turkey's secular agenda.
Europeans tend to love berating the Americans for their 'Islamophobia' after September 11th. Editorials, opinion pieces and comments by politicians about the simplistic attitude of the Americans to Islam have been advanced by a European mainstream elite, which sees itself more in touch with the Islamic world. That smugness, however, cannot mask the underlying issues that Europe itself has about Islam - Valery Giscard D'Estaing, the president of the Convention on the Future of Europe, declared that it would be the 'end of the EU' if Turkey joined. Jacques Chirac on Thursday declared that while Turkey could join, it would take a 'long, very long time', which translates from French to English as 'well after my term of office'. There is a widespread feeling that there is 'something' about Turkey - that it just wouldn't 'fit' in the EU - that smacks of the very attitude about Muslims that Europeans so love to criticise in Washington.
Turkey's membership will also have major psychological implications for Europeans - who have been taught about their 'Europeaness' through a prism of geography - from the Atlantic to the Urals and from the Arctic Circle to the Mediterranean. Turkey, with only Istanbul on the European geographic 'mainland' has always been a problem. What do you do when a country is somewhat in Europe and mostly in Asia? The only solution - other than an arbitrary one which hands your ability to make a political judgment to cartographers - is to recognise that the EU is about standards and common values, and that states who aspire and can live up to those common values in our region have the right to become members.
Many would like the EU to stop expanding eastward now - and would love countries such as Belarus and Ukraine to be a kind of buffer state between the EU and Russia. Try telling a Ukrainian that you want them to be a 'buffer' in the wider strategic interest and see how popular you will be.
Much of the language used surrounding enlargement is centred around the idea of countries such as the Czech Republic, Poland etc 'returning to Europe'. Plate tectonics have not been at play in their 'loss' to Europe - but it has been a real political and economic loss. How then will we view the continuing growth of the EU? Many would argue now is the time to pause and take a breath before enlarging anymore.
But how do you tell Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia or even Georgia that they may not 'return' to Europe? They were Europeans - and conscious of being so - while we in this part of Europe lived in mud-huts.
So, 25 today. How many tomorrow? The debate about enlargement is only just beginning.
Adrian Langan is executive director of Bill O'Herlihy Communications and a long-time pro-EU activist. This is the final article in the series