Eddie Fenech-Adami paused dramatically before delivering the line the crowd was waiting to hear. "The right choice for Malta is to join the European Union," the prime minister roared as thousands cheered and waved a forest of blue and yellow-starred flags under a high crescent moon.  Emotions were running high on Thursday night at the final mass rallies before today's vote on EU membership, the most momentous decision the island has taken since independence from Britain four decades ago.  The referendum is the first being held in any of the 10 countries set to join the union next year: Malta may be the minnow of the new intake, but bigger countries, such as Poland, are watching closely to see what its 380,000 people decide. Maltese laughingly describe themselves as passionate and deeply divided about football, saints' days, party loyalty - and Europe. This tense and occasionally nasty campaign has proved the point.  Mr Fenech-Adami and his conservative Nationalist party argue fiercely that EU membership is a national issue, not a party one. "We can choose to be part of the world's most powerful economic bloc," says the iva (yes) camp. "Or we can choose to be irrelevant to the rest of the world for the rest of our lifetime."  The man called simply "Eddie" by his admiring supporters had put it more succinctly: "No island is an island."  The le (no) camp, led by the opposition Labour party, wants Malta to have a loose but hazily defined "partnership" with the union, to be a "Mediterranean Switzerland" which somehow keeps its options open and holds Brussels and its laws at a distance.  Polls predict a close result, with attention focusing on a few thousand floating voters and worries that the "no" side will claim the result is invalid. That is a distinct possibility since they are calling on supporters to vote against, abstain or spoil their ballots. Turnout will be crucial.  Formally, the referendum is non-binding, but it is unlikely that a clear "yes" could be ignored even if Labour wins general elections that could be held as early as next month.  Malta, with a GDP of about 50% of the average among the 15 member states, applied to join the EU under the nationalists in 1990, but the bid was suspended under the 1996-98 Labour government.  Now, as then, Labour is led by Alfred Sant, author of Confessions of a Maltese European, the fruit of the five years he spent with his country's mission in Brussels.  But Mr Sant is no diplomat. When Gunther Verheugen, the EU's German commissioner for enlargement, visited recently, the Labour leader talked of the damage done by Luftwaffe bombs during the second world war. He dismissed the ex-president of the European parliament Nicole Fontaine as a bossy "Taliban".  Pro-EU supporters complain of the scaremongering familiar from Denmark's referendum on the euro and Ireland's on ratifying the Nice treaty.  Labour attacked the EU working time directive for banning overtime. It does no such thing.  Mr Sant named Maltese companies which he claimed would be threatened by mem bership. Most quickly countered that they saw new opportunities in the single market.  The anti-EU campaigners invoked restrictions on hunting, a non-existent danger of legalised abortion and a threat that the neutrality of what was once imperial Britain's unsinkable island fortress would become a modern bastion for an "EU army".  And figures for the pounds 120m in cash Malta is to receive in its first two years of membership were creatively massaged downwards. "Sant has made a political issue out of this referendum," said Mark Vella, a retired bank manager at Thursday's rally. "But it should be about the good of Malta."  The "yes" campaign has been accused of dominating the media, with anger directed at the European commission office and the government-funded information centre.  "The referendum is a farce," said Sharon Ellul Bonici, leader of the No2EU group. "People believe the EU is giving us a blank cheque. It's all lies but they've been repeated so many times people believe them."  The Maltese are split into those who fear staying out will leave them an isolated backwater and those, cheered on by Europhobes like the UK Independence party, who are fixated on outdated notions of national sovereignty.  "We've been dominated by others for 2,000 years," said Charlie Kitcher, a technician. "The EU has a lot of laws that are not suitable for small countries."  Carmelo, a hotel employee, disagreed. "It is better being in the EU than having Malta full of Arabs."  The "no" supporters want to wait for a better deal, but they are unlikely to get one. Malta did very well in the negotiating endgame at the Copenhagen summit, winning 77 special arrangements and transitional periods from EU law.  It has seven years to regulate the influx of workers, a special zone to manage its seas and a unique package on agriculture. And Maltese, unlike Irish or Luxembourgeois, won recognition as an official EU language.  "The thing about being on an island is that it's sometimes like a bubble," one diplomat said. "What's at stake here is the future of Malta. Europe is not going to grind to a halt if the 'no' camp wins. But this place might well regret it."  Hunting under fire  'Say no to EU' banners are draped across the facade of the Malta Labour party's social club in Valletta, and the talk inside is of rules from Brussels that will spoil the sport of the island's hunters.  Hunting and trapping have been part of the Maltese landscape since Phoenician times. Quail, turtledoves and woodcock are considered fair game for the island's 17,000 licensed hunters, many of them Labour supporters. Some 200,000 birds are blasted out of the sky every year on their way from Russia to Africa.  Such activities may soon become a thing of the past. In the EU, the government would get seven years to comply.  It is a highly sensitive issue. 'As often happens with compromise, no one is happy,' sighs an EU official. 'The environment groups went mad and the hunters said they would vote "no". The whole point is sustainability, but it's not seen that way here.' Classification Language: ENGLISH Subject: EUROPEAN UNION (90%); REFERENDUMS (89%); EUROPEAN UNION ACCESSION (89%); VOTERS & VOTING (89%); INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC ORGANIZATIONS (78%); ELECTIONS (77%); PRIME MINISTERS (77%); HEADS OF STATE & GOVERNMENT (77%); POLITICS (77%); PROTESTS & DEMONSTRATIONS (76%); POLITICAL PARTIES (76%); CAMPAIGNS & ELECTIONS (76%); GROSS DOMESTIC PRODUCT (75%); SEPARATISM & SECESSION (70%); WORLD WAR II (60%); POLLS & SURVEYS (51%) Company: EUROPEAN UNION LEISURE LTD (97%); EUROPEAN UNION LEISURE LTD (97%); EUROPEAN UNION (84%); EUROPEAN UNION (84%) Organization: EUROPEAN UNION (84%); EUROPEAN UNION (84%); EUROPEAN UNION (84%); EUROPEAN UNION (84%) Person: GUENTER VERHEUGEN (50%) Geographic: BRUSSELS, BELGIUM (73%); EUROPEAN UNION MEMBER STATES (94%); MALTA (93%); EUROPE (92%); BELGIUM (90%); POLAND (79%); SWITZERLAND (79%); GERMANY (79%)