The view from Riga: Mary Dejevsky
Membership of the European Union, it is widely accepted, transformed the economic fortunes of the countries of East and Central Europe, helped consolidate their independence and brought them into the European mainstream. If you visit almost any of those nations that joined in 2004 and compare them with how they looked, felt and functioned as communism collapsed across Europe, the transformation is astounding. To take the three Baltic states, their capitals are now jewels of restoration. Most of all, though, these small countries, incorporated against their will into the Soviet Union, now feel free.