20 years of EU enlargement : free movement of workers and social security coordination

Since its founding, the European Union (EU) has undergone several rounds of enlargement, expanding from the original six Member States to 27 today. This year marks the 20th anniversary of the European Union's fifth enlargement which took place in 2004. Two decades ago, citizens of ten Central and Eastern European (CEE) countries - Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia, and Slovenia - became part of the EU. As we celebrate the anniversary of the 2004 enlargement, we should also reiterate the benefits that the accession and the EU legal framework have brought to citizens from the enlargement countries and to citizens from the countries that were already part of the European Union (EU) at that time. This article focuses on the benefits related to free movement of workers (FMW) and social security coordination (SSC).