DUBLIN, Oct 18: Campaigners fanned out across Ireland on Friday in a last-ditch attempt to persuade voters to pass a treaty this weekend that the EU says is essential for enlarging the 15-nation bloc.

Ireland’s 2.9 million-strong electorate vote on the treaty for the second time in a referendum on Saturday. Last year only a third of them turned out and rejected it by 54 percent.

“There’s no stop until we get a ‘yes’ vote,” said Suzanne Coogan, press officer for the ruling Fianna Fail party, which has put ministers, MPs and party officials into the field to push hard for a reversal of last year’s result.

That setback threw into limbo EU plans to admit 10 new member states, mostly from Central and Eastern Europe. Another defeat, analysts say, would be disastrous for enlargement.

Polls this time put the “yes” vote comfortably ahead, with one of the latest showing 42 percent for the treaty and 29 percent opposed.

European Commission President Romano Prodi said he was optimistic the treaty would pass this time.

“We hope that it will be favourable,” Prodi said in Paris. “I’m very optimistic.”

Ireland’s official media campaign ended at midnight on Thursday with many voters still undecided. Opinion polls put the number at between 19 and 31 percent.

Canvassers making pitches for and against the treaty were out in force on Friday in Dublin’s main commercial area.

“We had great opinion polls last time, so the middle classes stayed at home,” said pro-Nice canvasser John Bergin of Irish Alliance for Europe. “We can’t let that happen this time. It really does hang on the turnout.”

“No” canvasser Paul O’Loughlin said it was worth a final push to try and persuade the undecided.

“We’re giving it a last shot. We have to go out fighting, and who knows, maybe there’s still a chance.”

The size of the vote is deemed critical, with a turnout of 45 percent or more generally thought to favour a “yes” outcome.

Partial results from electronic voting districts are expected by 2300 GMT on Saturday but a full count will not be known until Sunday evening.

TURNOUT CRUCIAL: The influential Irish Times said in an editorial that another “no” vote “would throw EU enlargement into crisis”.

“With so much at stake it is essential that those intending to vote ‘Yes’ should turn out to do so tomorrow to ensure such potential dangers are avoided,” the paper said.

“No” campaigners, who range from pacifists and socialists to right-wing eurosceptics, have been outgunned and outspent by a huge margin this time by the pro-treaty forces.

But with so many undecideds, the “no” side still has hope.

The EU says the treaty makes administrative reforms to permit new states to join the 15-nation bloc, but in Ireland the debate much of the time has focused anything but enlargement.

“I don’t want my kids going to war for something stupid,” said warehouse worker James Ryan.

The treaty now comes with a declaration by other EU states that Ireland could not be forced to join in military actions, and neutrality would be enshrined in the constitution.

Bookmakers are even more certain the treaty will pass than the opinion polls, with some quoting odds of six to one.

POLAND’S PLEA: An Irish “no” vote in Saturday’s referendum on European Union enlargement would be a “tremendous blow” which could delay the accession of 10 countries by years, Poland’s minister for Europe said on Friday.

Danuta Huebner told Reuters she hoped Ireland’s three million voters would open the door to over 70 million citizens in candidate states, but forecast more bumps along the road to planned EU enlargement in 2004 even if Saturday’s vote backed expansion.

“I still believe the Irish will realise they are not just voting about the European Union or the Nice Treaty, but are deciding the very fate of the candidate countries,” Huebner said in an interview.

Poland, which spawned the Solidarity people-power movement which overturned Soviet-backed communism in 1989, is the largest of a phalanx of eastern European countries which want to finally erase the Cold War divide by joining the strong western bloc.

“East Europeans have for years prepared for EU membership and are undergoing very difficult, painful, reforms because they see accession as a natural consequence of their historic transition to democracy,” said Huebner, 54.

Since Huebner, a trained economist, took up office a year ago, Poland has caught up in its EU talks with other front-runners like the Czech Republic and Hungary. But tough talks on farm aid and the EU budget remain to be tackled.

DEBATE OVERDUE: Only now, with enlargement around the corner, are member states beginning a debate on whether to embrace countries still trying to shake off the corruption and red tape they inherited from communism.

A row over whether candidates are fit to join the EU played a part in the collapse of the Dutch government this week, leaving a caretaker administration in office as accession talks head towards their climax in December.

“Not long ago, in the French election, nothing was said about enlargement, and now the Dutch situation shows that this issue is being taken up by parties for their domestic agendas,” Huebner said.

“I have faith in the responsibility of Dutch politicians, that the debate in Holland will not impact enlargement, because we cannot afford it in these uncertain times.”

Huebner said the debate was symptomatic of a lack of awareness in member states about the strides made by candidate countries and called for a publicity campaign to clear up the “stereotypes, misunderstandings and fears based on ignorance”. —Reuters