Slovakia has voted overwhelmingly to join the European Union, officials said yesterday, but a poor turnout nearly sank the poll, casting a shadow over similar votes in neighbouring Poland and the Czech Republic to be held in June.
Some 92.46 per cent of Slovak voters voted in favour while 6.2 said no to joining an enlarged EU next May, the country's referendum commission said as it released the official results of Friday and Saturday's vote.
Slovakia was the fifth EU candidate state this year to vote on joining the European bloc and it has given the strongest show of support yet, followed by Lithuania and Slovenia, which both voted Yes by 89 percent. But only just over half Slovak voters took part in the poll. The commission gave the official turnout as 52.15 per cent or 2.2 million voters.
If the turnout had been under 50 per cent the result would have been invalid and a disaster for Slovakia's centre-right government.
Slovakia was under communist rule until 1989 as a part of the former Czechoslovakia and has struggled to shake off its past.
It gained independence in 1993 but only turned the corner to democracy five years later, embarking on political and economic reforms, which last year yielded a growth rate of 4.4 per cent.
"This is a historic moment for Slovakia. We have achieved the work that we began in 1998," Prime Minister Mr Mikulas Dzurinda said after he declared with relief that enough people had voted for the result to stand.
Observers blamed the poor turnout on complacency, saying Slovakia has seen no strong opposition to EU accession and this had allowed Mr Dzurinda's government to present accession as a foregone conclusion.
A senior EU diplomat told AFP yesterday: "Everyone was in favour of accession, there was no strong opposition, and this did not help mobilise voters."
Slovak political analyst Mr Michael Vasecka said the flipside was that the minority of Slovaks who do not want to join the EU did not bother to vote against it either. "Those who are against EU accession simply did not go out to vote. That was their No."
He said he feared low participation in EU accession votes could become a trend in the former communist states that are set to join the bloc in May 2004, when its borders will extend eastwards to Asia.
In the referendum on EU accession in Hungary in April, voters approved the step by 89 per cent but only 46 per cent took part in the vote.
Poland will go to the polls on June 7th and 8th and the Czech Republic one week later.
While recent polls show that 72 per cent of Poles back joining the European Union next year, turnout will be decisive as there, too, more than 50 per cent of registered voters must cast ballots for the referendum to be valid.
"Slovakia's results show that it is very hard to have a good turnout. In order to get 50 per cent of voters to the polls, we will have to step up our referendum campaign," Mr Jerzy Jaskierniay of Poland's Democratic Left Alliance said yesterday.
Austrian Chancellor Mr Wolfgang Schüssel described the result as tremendous, and he praised the work of the Slovakian government in finally persuading more than half the voters to go to the polls.
The Minister for European Affairs, Mr Dick Roche, decribed the Slovakian vote as "another historic step towards the enlargement of the EU, which will take place during the Irish EU Presidency in 2004".
He continued: "Slovaks can now look forward to the benefits of EU membership and I look forward to the business, political and cultural links between our countries growing and prospering."