Forty years after the UK, Ireland and Denmark signed the treaties of the EEC, Seán Kelly and Margrete Auken debate whether their countries would still join the EU today.

360°: Was it worth joining the EU?

Forty years ago, four candidate countries

signed the treaties of what was called  the European Economic Community.

One year later, Denmark, the UK  and Ireland became full members.

The fourth one was Norway,  but it decided not to join

Today the same question remains  for many British, Danish and Irish citizens.

With me in the studio in Strasbourg  to discuss this first enlargement

I have Irish MEP, Seán Kelly -  hello, and welcome to the programme -

and Margrete Auken, a Danish MEP.  Welcome to both of you.

But before we start  and have a short look at a report

on the history of this first enlargement,

the first question I already asked  in the introduction to both of you.

Was it worth doing it?  Was it worth joining the EU

if you think back now to 40 years ago?  Would you make the same decision?

and lots of money  for the no campaign in Denmark.

I was really...  It was what pushed me into party politics.

And today I'm a strong,  enthusiastic supporter of the EU,

and I'm really scared  about the renationalisation

And I'm mobbing  my Norwegian colleagues,

because I say, 'You are part of  the whole thing except decision-making.'

'Is it that you don't like to vote?  What is the problem?'

Seán, were you in favour or against  at that time?

I was in favour  and I was only a young kid at the time.

I remember  when the referendum was held.

I was in a train one day  debating with an elderly man

why we should join,  and he said why we shouldn't.

I'm glad we did, because Ireland  was a colony of Britain for 700 years.

But it didn't get its economic freedom  until we joined the EU, the EEC at that time.

We have to remember that  Britain wasn't welcome in the 1960s.

There was the fact that  President de Gaulle of France

didn't want the UK to be part of it at all,  but then it changed.

We'll see this in the report  in a few minutes.

Was it important for Ireland  to be part of it with the UK

or just to show real independence from  the UK by being invited to be a member?

It actually answers  the point I was making.

We actually couldn't join  unless Great Britain joined as well,

because we were so economically tied  to Great Britain

that if we went in on our own  we probably wouldn't have survived.

But once we joined,  it opened up the whole single market.

It also opened up for us  the Structural Funds

and we went from being an average  of 56% of GDP across Europe in 1973

to about 122% at the height  of the Celtic Tiger.

That was as a result of joining the EEC,  which became the EU.

The situation was different.  The single market wasn't there.

It was the open market,  which was something different.

and we're still suffering from the whole  concept - there we might disagree -

that the first enlargement  was about the market.

The Union was about no more war  and the fact that we must now cooperate,

a much more political vision  than that time when it was 'the market'.

And being in the Green Left, it was  absolutely the worst thing we could do

to just sell ourselves through the market.

But one of the arguments  in Denmark was...

The British yes came before the Danish  one, and it was really like this.

It was that our exports  were so linked to the British market

that we had to follow them.  That was one argument.

So you would say this was  a real market, economic enlargement

and then political...  -Yes, and how can we benefit?

We had a lot of agricultural exports  and we could be part of this...

In Denmark we still considered it idiotic

to have this enormous level  of subsidised agriculture.

But for the whole agricultural exports,  and so on,

that have been suffering,  as much as in Norway with the no,

from that idea of the EU  as a place where you can get more.

Let's have a look at a report  from my colleague, Jim Gibbons,

who has tried to go through  this history 40 years ago.

The story of the first enlargement  of the European Economic Community

begins long before  Denmark, Ireland and Britain joined.

Negotiations began  12 years earlier in 1961,

but Britain's application then  and another in 1967

were vetoed by French President  Charles de Gaulle

who feared US influence and  English becoming the dominant language.

The no to Britain meant that Denmark  and Ireland were also unsuccessful.

It was Georges Pompidou  who indicated in 1968

that he wouldn't block the UK and Ireland.

Of course, we have benefited greatly  as a result of our membership of the EU.

All the applicant countries  had their eurosceptics.

In Denmark, one contemporary  anti-membership campaigner

Especially in the 1990s, I was  one of those leading the campaign

Really, I was able to describe it  for my fellow party-members

and say that this is a project for heroes.

It's not 'What can we get?',  it's 'What can we offer?'

On 22 January 1972 in Brussels, the four  candidate countries signed the treaties.

The Netherlands, Belgium, France,  Germany, Luxembourg and Italy

had formed the European Coal and Steel  Community which became the EEC.

Britain's ties with Ireland  meant they must join together.