I spent Christmas 2004 in Slovenia, the same year they joined the EU. The people there were very excited about the possibilities.
We had a guide as part of the package holiday and one of the extra social activities we could sign up for was a schnapps tasting tour. We drove out into the country to what turned out to be an old farm house with what they called a black kitchen where they smoked meats. I remember thinking there was no way the that place wouldn’t run afoul of some state or federal regulations in the US with their homemade schnapps, cheeses and meats and wondering how much their new freedoms were going to change the character of the place.