After Irish referendum victory, poll shows only half of Europeans support enlargement

Hours after a referendum in Ireland cleared the way for enlargement of the EU, a poll showed that only half of all European voters back plans to admit 10 new countries, with support for the project lowest in Britain.

Fewer than one in four Britons say they support expansion of the EU, although there is more outright hostility to the project in three other countries including France, where nearly half the population says it is opposed.

The latest findings from a Eurobarometer survey illustrate how much the political élite needs to do to convince a sceptical public to support admission of the mainly ex-Communist countries in just over a year. Danes and Greeks are most likely to be in favour of admitting the 10 nations: Hungary, Poland, the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Slovenia, Latvia, Lithuania, Estonia, Cyprus and Malta.

The survey shows people in Britain think they know less about the EU than those in any other country, replying "don't know" to a host of questions. The report's authors say this fuels Euroscepticism. "Our analyses show that the more people feel they know about the EU, the more likely they are to support it", the document says.

EU leaders have hailed the Irish referendum result as a vote of confidence in enlargement from the only electorate which has been given the chance to cast a ballot on the issue.

Foreign ministers met in Luxembourg yesterday to try to remove obstacles jeopardising the timetable for enlargement. They were concentrating on how to placate Moscow over the addition of Lithuania and Poland to the EU, which will isolate the Russian enclave of Kaliningrad from the rest of the country and could force Russians to use visas to travel to and from it.

Talks will be held today to consider how the process of expansion will be financed. A Franco-German clash over reforming EU farm subsidies and funding enlargement could block agreement on when EU leaders meet in Brussels on Thursday and Friday. France has rejected German calls for a reduction in farm subsidies from 2006.

Berlin, which pays most into EU coffers, has called for this pledge in exchange for supporting a plan to offer farmers in the new countries 25 per cent of the agricultural direct payments, phasing in the full 100 per cent over a decade. France benefits significantly from the common agricultural policy.

"We have quite a task ahead of us. I'm expecting very tough negotiations," said Anders Fogh Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, which holds the rotating EU presidency.

Supporters of British membership of the euro have urged Tony Blair to begin a campaign in favour of the single currency. The Eurobarometer poll found that 52 per cent of the British population opposes joining the single currency, with 31 per cent in favour.

Gary Titley, leader of the Labour group in the European Parliament said: "We must go on the offensive and make it our business to expose the scaremongering myths that have misled the British public for so long."