ABOUT 59 PER CENT of Finns are supportive of Finland joining Nato, reveals an opinion survey published on Wednesday by Helsingin Sanomat.
The level of support found in the survey represents a drop of two percentage points from the previous edition of the survey, conducted two weeks earlier. The proportion of respondents who oppose the membership contrastively crept up by one point to 17 per cent and that of respondents who have no opinion on the issue by one point to 24 per cent.
All of the changes fall within the survey’s three-point margin of error.
The respondents were presented the following question: “Currently, Nato has 30 and the EU 27 member states. Out of EU countries, 21 are also Nato members. In your view, should Finland join or not join Nato?”
While the level of support remains markedly high in light of the entire, two-decade history of the survey, the results are not fully comparable with most of the earlier editions as the survey method was changed from phone interviews to an online panel in March.
The survey corroborates recent findings about views on the membership in different population groups.
The notion of joining the defence alliance was supported by 72 per cent of men but only by 50 per cent of women, and 71 per cent of over 70-year-olds but only by 39 per cent of under 30-year-olds. Senior managerial employees, business owners and pensioners were more widely supportive of the notion than workers and students.
While 45 per cent of students voiced their support for the membership, as many as 40 per cent of them indicated that they have yet to form their position on the issue.
Roughly three-quarters of respondents who indicated that they lean toward the right end of the political spectrum expressed their support for joining Nato. Supporters of left-wing parties, on the other hand, are considerably more divided, with about half in favour and one-third against the membership.
Kantar TNS interviewed 1,057 people for the survey between 8 and 13 April.
Aleksi Teivainen – HT
