The European Commission today recommended the entry of 10 countries into the EU by 2004 in a historic enlargement that will for the first time see the continent freely united.
Thirteen years after the fall of the Berlin Wall, the EU's executive arm gave the green light for a reshaping of the 15-member bloc that will take it up to the borders of Russia.
Barring last-minute hitches - including the Irish referendum on the Nice Treaty - the new members will join in time for European parliament elections in 2004.
The commission, in detailed assessment reports on the candidate countries, recommended the entry of Cyprus, the Czech Republic, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia.
But the report failed to give Turkey, a close US ally and NATO member, a date to start negotiations for entry while two poorer Balkan countries, Romania and Bulgaria, were cited as possible entrants in 2007.
"Enlargement is our political masterpiece because it will enable us to avoid all that. The cost of enlargement is nothing to the cost of non-enlargement," Commission president Mr Romano Prodi told the European parliament.
Mr Prodi acknowledged doubts about the entrance of the new members, mostly impoverished countries that are heavily reliant on farming. "It is no secret that the accession of these 10 countries will cost an enormous amount of money," he said.
"But enlargement should not be seen only in economic terms. It is above all an ethical and political process," Prodi said, pointing to the recent grisly history of the Balkans.
The commission's proposals will form the basis for a political decision on EU enlargement expected by the end of the year.
EU leaders will meet in Brussels later this month to discuss the recommendations, setting the stage for a December summit in Copenhagen at which formal invitations will be extended.