The three Baltic countries - Latvia, Estonia and Lithuania - will be among the smallest members when they join the Union on May 1, 2004, their total of 6 million people representing just 1.5% of the then EU's population. Yet in marked contrast to the smaller nations that half a century earlier had joined France, Italy and Germany in launching the Union's fore-runner, the European Economic Community, the new arrivals are digging in their heels, demanding equal rights.