People in the Baltic states burst into song on Friday to celebrate joining the European Union at midnight, 14 years after singing their way out of the Soviet Union.

"Latvia has prepared for the EU, Latvia has strived and argued and achieved a result. Now it is time to celebrate," President Vaira-Vike Freiberga said to a crowd of 30,000 new Europeans gathered for a concert to celebrate EU membership on the banks of Riga's Daugava river.

"What do Latvians look like? We are pretty enough, we are clever and hard working. .. And one of our most beautiful features is the art of celebration. We celebrate by singing," she said, as ministers and partygoers sang national and rock songs together.

The Baltic states' singing tradition hit the international spotlight as the Soviet Union crumbled, during the so-called Singing Revolution of passive resistance, when on August 23, 1989 two million people held hands to make a human chain from Vilnius through Riga to Tallinn.

More singing late on Friday in neighbouring Lithuania where up to 50,000 people crammed into two central Vilnius squares waving Lithuanian and EU flags and balloons, for concerts of national and pop songs.

One of the venues was the main Cathedral square where the human chain in 1989 started.

"Let's welcome Lithuania coming back home," acting President Arturas Paulauskas told celebrators in Europe square, before joining in the singing himself, with Lithuania's best rock and pop groups and the country's best orchestra.

Yet more singing in the streets of Tallinn and Tartu in Estonia, where President Arnold Ruutel told a concert to celebrate EU membership of the importance of language and culture.

"I would stress in particular the importance of culture in shaping the identity of Europe," Ruutel said in a speech. "Culture is the language that is capable of creating a sense of togetherness between both individuals and nations."

During five decades of Soviet occupation from 1940 to 1991, people in the three then Baltic Soviet republics of Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania used to sing national songs in order to keep their hope of freedom alive.

In Lithuania late on Friday fireworks lit up the skies to celebrate EU membership and many Lithuanians turned on their lights at 10:40 pm (09:40 pm) for a satellite picture.

Vilnius' main avenue was thronging with people, with makeshift cafes set up offering every kind of EU food, from French speciality frogs' legs to Hungarian goulash.

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