Poland has voted to join the European Union with 77 per cent of voters approving the weekend's referendum.
With all but a few votes now counted, participation was recorded at 59 per cent after most voters cast their votes on Sunday following a low turnout on Saturday.
Poland, with 38 million people, is the largest of 10 nations set to join the EU next year, with voting power equal to Spain and behind only Britain, France and Germany.
Turnout had surged to the 59 per cent level yesterday, with many voters motivated by a dismaying 18 per cent vote on Saturday. A 50 per cent turnout was needed to make the referendum valid.
Poles filled public squares from the Baltic port of Gdansk to the southern town of Skoczow to celebrate with concerts and fireworks, waving EU and Polish flags.
"Poland is once again in the European family," President Aleksander Kwasniewski told more than 2,000 cheering Poles outside the theatre. "We are together again after all those years. We are in".
The vote empowers Mr Kwasniewski to ratify Poland's treaty with the EU, signed at an Athens summit in April.
The treaty calls for a seven-year transition period, but The Netherlands and Britain are among five nations that have said they will welcome Poles as soon as accession is official.
In Berlin, German Chancellor Gerhard Schroeder welcomed Poles' "decisive vote," saying it would invigorate German-Polish relations.
EU membership will give Poles the chance to legally live and work within the European Union for the first time.
AP