WARSAW, Poland — Poles voted overwhelmingly Sunday to bring their nation of 38 million into the European Union (search), fulfilling long-nurtured aspirations after decades of Cold War isolation.

President Aleksander Kwasniewski, an ardent EU campaigner, underlined the historic dimension of the weekend referendum, exclaiming to cheering supporters at the presidential palace: "We are coming back! We are coming back to Europe (search)!"

"Poland in the European Union -- could anyone have dreamed about it more than a decade ago?" Kwasniewski said.

Poland (search), the first Soviet bloc country to topple communism in 1989, will be the largest country to join the 15-nation bloc next year, with voting power equal to Spain and behind only Great Britain, Germany, France and Italy.

The EU invited 10 nations to join next year. Poland is the sixth to approve membership.

Across the country, jubilant Poles filled central squares to celebrate, some waving red-and-white Polish flags, others blue EU banners.

Bands played both the Polish and EU anthems as revelers danced, uncorked champagne and paraded about with children on their shoulders.

Turnout surged to 58 percent of the nation's 29.5 million registered voters Sunday, after a disappointing show of 18 percent Saturday. A 50-percent turnout was required to make the referendum valid.

Early official returns showed 76 percent voted "yes" for membership, with 75 percent of Poland's 25,000 polling stations reporting.

"After yesterday, my heart was shaking and I was not optimistic that the turnout would be so good today," Kwasniewski said. "We went through nervous moments."

In a potent reminder of Poland's long struggle to rejoin the community of democratic nations, Kwasniewski was joined by Solidarity activists who defied the communist regime as well as by the last communist leader, Mieczyslaw Rakowski, who participated in round-table talks that led to democratic change.

Poland's most famous freedom fighter, Solidarity founder and former President Lech Walesa, watched from his home in the Baltic port city of Gdansk.

"We achieved a success. Let's celebrate," Walesa told The Associated Press by telephone. "This is my last fight for Poland's future chances. This is the last battle."

Prime Minister Leszek Miller, whose government is suffering the worst approval ratings since the fall of communism, was visibly relieved.

"We are citizens of Poland, we are citizens of Europe," Miller said.

The referendum gives Kwasniewski the popular mandate needed to ratify Poland's treaty with the EU, signed at an Athens, Greece, summit in April.

Poland leads the largest wave of EU expansion, with 10 nations invited to join on May 1, 2004.

Hungary, Slovakia, Slovenia, Malta and Lithuania already have approved EU membership with referendums. The Czech Republic votes next week, followed by Latvia and Estonia in September. Cyprus is leaving its decision to parliament.

In Brussels, Belgium, the EU Commission called the vote "a turning point in European history."

Polish leaders campaigned heavily for accession, saying it would accelerate modernization in a nation still recovering from 40 years of communist rule and restore Poland to its rightful place in Europe.

Outside the EU, Poland, with a gross domestic product of just 42 percent of the EU average, would never bridge the gap with the West, leaders argued.

They were backed by a parade of EU leaders and even received a nod from President Bush, who said in Krakow last week that there was no conflict between being a citizen of Europe and a close friend of the United States.

Polish-born Pope John Paul II called EU accession "an act of historic justice."

EU campaigners were opposed by a loose alliance of ultraconservative Catholics worried about an erosion of traditional values and by radical farmers who warned that Poland's 2 million sustenance farms would disappear under western competition.

Opponents warned supporters they would rue the day they voted "yes."

"They will discover that in their own pockets," said Zygmunt Wrzodak, leader of the Catholic Nationalist League of Polish Families.

Dismay at poor first-day turnout mobilized a grass-roots call to vote Sunday, with EU supporters counting on the Polish habit of voting after Mass.

From their pulpits, priests in this devoutly Roman Catholic country reminded people of their responsibility to vote.

In Warsaw, people returned early from weekend homes to vote, creating a traffic jam hours earlier than the usual pattern.

"Not joining the EU means cowardice. We have to be ambitious and we need to join," said Wlodzimierz Kruk, voting after a weekend away with his wife.

But many in villages were doubtful about their future in the EU -- persuaded by anti-EU campaigners' fearful predictions that their farms would be destroyed and skeptical about the annual subsidies that Polish negotiators secured for them.

Some made a show of slipping their open ballots marked "no" into ballot boxes in plain view of anyone present.

Stanislaw Lach, 74, a retired farmer, was among 50 people who walked straight from church to the polling station in the village of Gluchow, 50 miles southwest of Warsaw. He voted against membership.

"They are threatening us with Brussels, which is not willing to vie anything to farmers and our living is hard," Lach said.