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At the top of a mountain on the borders of Austria, Italy and Slovenia, top officials met for a ceremony to mark the European Union enlargement due to take place at the stroke of midnight Friday. In Prague, a Polish couple explained why they had come to an EU fair on historic Na Prikope street in the baroque splendor of the Czech capital, where national as well as the characteristic blue EU flags were flying at stands for each of the 25 EU states -- the 15 present members, plus the 10 soon to join the EU family. The Czech Republic is one of the 10 nations joining the EU along with Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Slovakia and Slovenia. My ship has come to port," Walesa was quoted as saying in the Zycie Warszawy newspaper. There will be fireworks at midnight Friday in Prague and on Saturday Spidla will meet his German and Polish counterparts for ceremonies at Zittau, the German town where the frontiers of the Czech Republic, Germany and Poland meet. Hungary kicked off celebrations with the tolling of a flower-shaped bell. Our integration can be a historic turning point," Prime Minister Peter Medgyessy said at the ceremony in Budapest's historic castle district. Medgyessy was to turn over an eight-metre (25-foot) hourglass at midnight Friday to mark Hungary's accession. An exhibition of hundreds of objects that Budapest residents say they will not take with them into the new EU era was on view at a downtown bus station. The first babies born in the Baltic state of Lithuania after it joins will become stars in an 85-year-long TV documentary charting their lives, Arunas Matelis, the head of the project, said. And the people of Lithuania are being called on to switch on all their lights and start fires across the country late on Friday in a bid to become the brightest country to join the EU. A US satellite will be standing by to photograph the event from space. European Commission chief Romano Prodi was at midnight Friday to attend a ceremony in the Italian town of Gorizia/Nova Gorica, which was divided during World War II and straddles the former Iron Curtain border with Slovenia. All information displayed in this section (dispatches, photographs, logos) are protected by intellectual property rights owned by Agence France-Presse. As a consequence you may not copy, reproduce, modify, transmit, publish, display or in any way commercially exploit any of the contents of this section without the prior written consent of Agence France-Presses.
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