March 11, 2003	Tuesday	Muharram 7, 1424

LONDON: The EU’s biggest ever enlargement passed its crucial first popular test on Sunday when voters in Malta — the union’s smallest newcomer — said a quiet “Yes” to membership.

Early returns showed 53 per cent of voters in the tiny Mediterranean island had opted to join the EU, quashing fears that a “no” would trigger a domino effect among millions of east Europeans making a similar decision over the coming months.

Eddie Fenech-Adami, the leader of the ruling nationalist party, claimed victory in Saturday’s referendum, with 53 per cent for and 45 per cent against after half the votes had been counted.

“The electorate has given a clear-cut indication that it wanted the country to join Europe,” said the deputy prime minister, Lawrence Gonzi. But the membership issue could be challenged in a new general election as soon as next month.

Triumphant “yes” campaigners led honking motorcades through the streets of Valletta and waved blue and yellow -starred EU flags alongside red and white Maltese ones as the results were announced. One slogan read: “Vote Yes, for us, for our children, for our country.”

Mr Fenech-Adami had called for a national, not a party- political decision, arguing that it was common sense for the island’s 380,000 people to join the world’s most powerful economic bloc. The “no” camp, led by the opposition Labour Party and the largest trade union, proposed a “partnership” with the EU but failed to explain how their “Mediterranean Switzerland” would actually work.

Alfred Sant, the Labour leader, demonstratively failed to vote on Saturday, having argued that the issue should be tested in a general election, not a referendum. He had urged supporters to stay away, vote “no” or spoil their ballots by writing “Viva Malta.”

But Mr Fenech-Adami is now expected to call an early election to consolidate Saturday’s victory, probably in April, just before all 10 candidate countries sign their accession treaties at a grand ceremony at the Acropolis in Athens.

Malta’s vote was the first in a series of polls over the next nine months which will seal the expansion of the union, from the current 15 to 25 members in May 2004.

Slovenia and Hungary are next, with the final membership referendum due in Latvia in September. Most attention is likely to focus on Poland, the largest country in the new intake, when it votes in June.

EU officials had been nervous about the outcome in Malta, a former British colony, because it is the only candidate country in which the main opposition party opposes membership.

Malta had to overcome a tradition of political isolation and economic protectionism which will be replaced by the stringent but potentially rewarding requirements of EU membership.

When it joins, it will have one commissioner in Brussels, a proportionate number of members of the European Parliament, and votes in the council of ministers. Maltese will become an official EU language.

In a country where the conduct of politics is intense and often highly personalised, the campaign was acrimonious. Labour was accused of scaremongering when it warned of job losses, price rises and an influx of foreigners. But at last December’s Copenhagen summit, Malta won generous membership terms and long transition periods before it must comply with all aspects of EU legislation on issues ranging from food safety to financial services.

Maltese divided into those who feared that staying out of the EU would leave them an isolated backwater, and those who were who were worried about national sovereignty. The government made a strong economic case, arguing that EU membership would be a boost for a country that has no natural resources and relies heavily on services, tourism and shipping.

“We’ll have unhindered access to the continent with a new market of 500 million people,” Mr Fenech-Adami said. “This will bring investment to our economy and create jobs.” In the final days of the campaign there was a whiff of panic from the “no” camp, which was widely perceived as exaggerating or lying.

Eurosceptics from Britain and elsewhere pitched in to play on fears about domination by Brussels, abortion and neutrality — issues which also featured in the referendums in Denmark on the euro, and Ireland’s on the Nice treaty.

The “Yes” camp worked hard and achieved a turnout of 91 per cent, with hospital patients carried on stretchers, and prison vans taking inmates sentenced to less than one year, to the polls.—Dawn/The Guardian News Service.