PRAGUE: Fireworks lit up the sky over Prague Castle at the weekend, casting out the last communist shadows, as the Czech people voted overwhelmingly to join the European Union.
Official results of the country's two-day referendum showed that 77 per cent of voters cast their ballots in favour of EU membership, 23 per cent against, with a turnout of 55 per cent.
"This is a victory for the Czech people. For me, this is the end of World War II, with all its consequences," said Mr Vladimir Spidla, the Czech Prime Minister.
Mr Spidla thanked voters for speaking so clearly and said that he would use the result as a mandate for reform ahead of accession next year.
"Reform is an absolute necessity for the Czech Republic and it must be implemented by this government - or another - as quickly and efficiently as possible," Mr Spidla said in an interview with the Pravo newspaper.
He said that he would resign if he failed to push through proposed reforms to cut spending by €6.5 billion in the next three years to prepare the Czech Republic for accession, and, further down the road, the euro.
But his planned reforms are likely to put pressure on his coalition government - spanning left-leaning Social Democrats and two centre-right parties - which has just a one-vote majority in parliament.
Political observers in Prague praised the maturity of voters for distinguishing between the country's domestic difficulties and its long-term future.
"The vote has to some extent strengthened the government: this is their victory," said Mr Jiri Pehe, an independent political analyst and adviser to the former president, Mr Vaclav Havel.
The near impossibility of early elections under the Czech constitution means that it is difficult to see any other parliamentary constellation which could do any better than the current administration, he says. "A grand coalition is unlikely, so at this point it looks like we're stuck with Spidla and can only hope he gets the reforms through."
The Czech newspapers welcomed the referendum result yesterday, although some injected a note of caution into their commentaries. The widely-read Blesk newspaper said that the EU road would be "long and filled with thorns".
Anti-EU campaigners painted a black picture, with grim words for their fellow countrymen.
Political analyst Jefim Fistejn told a radio station: "Welcome on board the Titanic. The time of sobering up and hangovers is coming soon. The people will not blame themselves, but the politicians who led them to this vote."
He said that the Czech Republic's EU membership would bring about strikes and general social upheaval as a result of the reforms needed to meet EU requirements.
But there was little talk of looming problems on the streets of Prague during the weekend.
Ms Monika Pajerova, a former student activist from the 1989 overthrow of communism who became head of the non-government "Yes for Europe" campaign, said: "I think Czechs, Poles, Hungarians have a specific point of view on how Europe should be constructed, what the priorities should be. And I think we can influence it more being in rather than being out." The Czech poll, unlike the Polish referendum a week earlier, had no 50 per cent legal hurdle. Nevertheless, a high turnout was necessary to lend credibility to the result.
A lacklustre government campaign had presented EU accession as another step in the post-communist modernisation process which included the 1998 abolition of trade barriers between the Czech Republic and the EU and the country's accession to NATO a year later.
The 10 million Czechs are the seventh accession nation to vote to join the EU. Malta, Lithuania, Hungary, Slovenia, Slovakia and , most recently, Poland all voted Yes. Latvia and Estonia will hold referendums in the autumn while in Cyprus the parliament will decide.
"This is a good day for Europe, another proof that our peoples belong together," Mr Romano Prodi, the European Commission President, said yesterday. The Minister of State for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, said the Czech vote would "help secure the future of the Czech people, and bring the historic enlargement of the EU, during our Presidency, closer to reality".