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Support for Swedish NATO membership drops

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Support for Swedish NATO membership drops

Fewer Swedes support Swedish membership in NATO and roughly half are outright opposed to the idea, a new poll shows.

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Every other Swede believes that Sweden should refrain from joining the NATO defence alliance.

In addition, 23 percent indicated they were positively inclined toward Swedish NATO membership, according to a poll conducted by the Sifo polling firm and published on Thursday in the Svenska Dagbladet (SvD) newspaper.

The results show that the number of Swedes in favour of NATO membership has dropped by 10 percent since a previous poll conducted in March 2009, while the number opposed to Sweden joining NATO remains at the same level.

The remainder of the respondents, 27 percent, are unsure or don't know about their opinion on the issue.

While the Liberal Party (Folkpartiet) has long championed the cause of Swedish NATO membership, the poll revealed that only 29 percent of the party's voters are in favour of the idea, and 46 percent are opposed, SvD reports.

According to the poll Moderate Party and Sweden Democrat voters are the most positive to NATO membership, with 33 percent and 32 percent, respectively, saying they are in favour of Sweden joining the defence alliance.

However, the figure still represents a 10 percent drop in support for NATO membership among Moderate voters since the 2009 poll.

The number of voters opposed to NATO membership is larger than the number in favour across all political parties, with the Green Party registering the highest percentage of respondents opposed – 62 percent.

The result come from 1,000 telephone interviews conducted between May 4-10.

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