(BRUSSELS) - European leaders on Monday voiced relief at the victory of pro-EU liberals in Poland's elections, which means the ouster of eurosceptic prime minister Jaroslaw Kaczynski.

European Commission chief Jose Manuel Barroso hailed "the European spirit of the Polish people," after opposition leader Donald Tusk's Civic Platform had routed Kaczynski's conservative Law and Justice party at the polls on Sunday.

The EU leader added that he was confident "that there will be a fruitful cooperation with the next Polish government."

Europe's top election watchdog, which had sparred with Warsaw over being invited to monitor the snap polls, declared itself pleased with the "democratic and pluralistic process" despite some worries about pre-election media bias.

With almost all the ballots counted, Tusk's party had won a projected 209 seats in the 460-seat Sejm, against 166 seats for the ruling party led by Kaczynski and his identical twin brother, President Lech Kaczynski.

Kaczynski's government has gained a reputation as a difficult customer in Brussels and elsewhere, not least during negotiations on a new EU reform treaty to replace the failed constitution.

During those talks, which ended with an agreement at an EU summit in Lisbon last Friday, Warsaw was granted concessions to avert the possibility of a Polish veto.

The EU's Portuguese presidency reacted discreetly to the election results, hailing Polish democracy and looking forward to "good cooperation" with the new government, according to spokesman Manuel Carvalho.

Portuguese sources admitted on the eve of the Polish general election that a defeat for the Kaczynski party would be welcome.

A top Civic Platform official announced Sunday that the new government would adopt the EU charter of fundamental rights, which the conservatives bitterly opposed, partly due to its liberal stand on gay rights.

Germany, which has had its own problems with the outgoing Polish administration, immediately held out a diplomatic hand to the victorious Tusk.

"We have an enormous interest in good, close, neighbourly ties with Poland and we hope that the offer for dialogue and for readjustment will be seized by the new government in Warsaw under Donald Tusk," German government spokesman Thomas Steg said.

Last month a senior Polish diplomat accused Germany of seeking to isolate Poland within the European Union, while paying lip service to bilateral cooperation.

In June, the Polish prime minister invoked the carnage wrought by the Nazis to score a point in the row over EU voting rights, saying that without the war Poland would today be a nation of 66 million people instead of 38 million.

France on Monday hailed "the attachment of the Polish people to European construction," with a foreign ministry spokesman pointing out the turnout rate of 53.79 percent, the highest since Poland's communist regime was ousted in 1989.

Outside of the EU, Russian officials said the election result raised hopes of an improvement in relations between Brussels and Moscow.

Poland, the biggest country to join the EU in its 2004 expansion, has vetoed the start of negotiations on a key new EU-Russian partnership agreement in retaliation for a Russian ban on Polish meat imports.

Meanwhile, US Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, visiting Ukraine, said he hoped Poland would continue to cooperate with Washington on Iraq and a proposed missile shield despite the change of government.

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