Montenegro was today confident that it would be fast-tracked into the European Union after voting by a slim margin to secede from Serbia.

After a night of pre-emptive celebrations among the pro-independence camp, official results of the referendum showed that 55.4 per cent voted in favour of finally severing the loose alliance with their larger neighbour.

Some 45 of the 1,120 polling stations have yet to finalise their counts, but the outcome will not be affected.

Frantisek Lipka, the head of the referendum commission, said: "For the independence of Montenegro, 55.4 per cent voted in favour and 44.6 were against." The threshold for a successful yes vote was 55 per cent.

The result confirms the break-up of one of the final fragments of the former Yugoslavia and the creation of Europe's newest state, independent for the first time since 1918.

Montenegro has a total population of 650,000, roughly the same as Glasgow and ten times smaller than that of Serbia.

Opponents of the pro-independence movement have yet to concede defeat and have accused their rivals of paying for tickets to fly in hundreds of expatriates to sway the vote.

Independence supporters, led by Milo Djikanvic, the Prime Minister, believe that the country's path into the EU will be speeded up now it has been shorn of the problems engulfing Serbia. "We’ve got our state!" the government’s website quoted him as saying.

Serbia's accession talks were frozen earlier this month in a dispute over the failure to send General Ratko Mladic to a UN war crimes tribunal.

Until now, Serbia-Montenegro's talks about future membership have been run on a dual-track system to take into account the two states’ economic systems: their divorce is likely to have little impact on the technical aspect of the negotiations. There will, however, be a delay as it awaits formal recognition as a state by the international community.

Celebrations began late last night when exit polls showed a marginal victory for the pro-independence movement.

Predrag Sekulic, an official of the campaign group, said: "It is my pleasure to announce that Montenegro tonight has become an independent state." Waves of celebratory gunfire and fireworks thundered across the capital, Podgorica, after the unofficial result was announced.

The country remains deeply divided. While red and gold flags with the crest of the Montenegrin Royal Family - the symbol of the independence movement - fluttered across Podgorica there is a different mood in the mountainous north near the border with Serbia. In the town of Kolasin, those who supported the continuing union with Serbia wore blue T-shirts bearing one word: "Ne!"

There are close cultural, religious and family links between Montenegro and Serbia and many people see no reason to create an international border.

However, the two states already have different currencies and trade and customs laws, and there are only a few formal assets left to divide, most notably embassy buildings. Their joint parliament rarely meets.

While Montenegrin newspapers' celebrated the result with headlines "Breakaway" and "It's Over", the reaction in Serbia which has also, by default, become an independent state, was clouded by suspicion.

Aleksandar Simic, an adviser to Serbian Prime Minister Vojislav Kostunica, was quoted as saying he would "not be surprised if someone today filed criminal charges" against the pollsters.

"What they did was in the best tradition of separatist scenarios," he said, without explaining further.

Montenegro would be the last of the former Yugoslavia’s six federal republics to spilt from Serbia since 1991 after a series of bloody conflicts in the early 1990s.

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