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Majority of Finns favor referendum on NATO: survey

Xinhua, January 10, 2015 Adjust font size:

The majority of Finns believe that a referendum would be the best way to decide whether Finland should join NATO, a survey published by Finnish national broadcaster YLE on Friday revealed.

According to the survey, 63 percent of respondents supported a referendum to decide Finland's NATO membership, while only 27 percent favored parliamentary vote to make the decision.

Those who were most enthusiastic about a referendum were the supporters of the Finns Party and the Left Alliance, while the supporters of the National Coalition Party (NCP) and the Swedish Peoples Party were the least keen on the view.

A total of 1,002 Finns participated in the survey, commissioned by YLE and carried out by Taloustutkimus, a Finnish market research company. The survey took place between the end of December 2014 and the beginning of January 2015.

Among the Finnish political parties, NCP, the current ruling party of Finland, was more inclined to NATO membership.

Public opinion polls in Finland have consistently shown a solid majority of Finns against joining the military alliance in recent years, although the number of NATO membership supporters has been on the rise in the country since the Ukraine crisis started in February 2014. Endit