As many as 76 percent of Slovenians support the ratification of the Croatian agreement with the EU

Three-quarters of Slovenians believe that the Croatian accession agreement with the European Union should be ratified, although it seems that there are fewer and fewer opportunities for this, claims Ljubljana’s ‘Delo’ on Monday, citing the results of a survey in which more than 500 respondents answered questions regarding the resolution of the Slovenian political crisis.

When asked whether they support the ratification of the Croatian accession agreement with the European Union, 76 percent of respondents answered affirmatively, 14 percent negatively, and 10 percent were undecided, in a survey conducted by Delo last week, with results published on Monday.

The survey, conducted on a representative sample of more than 500 respondents, shows that a large majority of Slovenians support the ratification of the Croatian accession agreement, although it seems that there is less and less room for ratification, Delo assesses.

– In recent weeks, it seems increasingly unlikely that the Slovenian parliament will ratify Croatia’s accession agreement with the European Union as things are complicated by the issue of Ljubljanska Bank and the Slovenian political and government crisis. However, it is evident that ratification would occur very quickly if the public were to decide on such matters – states the leading Slovenian newspaper, commenting on the response to the question about the ratification of the Croatian accession agreement posed to the respondents.

The central part of the survey dealt with the possibilities for resolving the Slovenian political crisis in which the government no longer has majority support in parliament, and Prime Minister Janez Janša is gradually losing his coalition partners.

Only 14 percent of respondents agreed that Prime Minister Janez Janša should continue to insist on his position and lead the country with a minority government. For the formation of a transitional government to be composed by a new parliamentary majority, a government tasked with carrying out specific tasks until new elections (the so-called ‘project government’), 29 percent of respondents opted, while 49 percent assessed that the best exit from the current situation would be early elections.

When asked about the best timing for such elections, 66 percent of respondents indicated that they should be held ‘as soon as possible’, while 16 percent suggested that the new parliament could be elected at the same time as Slovenian representatives to the European Parliament, i.e., in the spring of next year. The least number of respondents, 12 percent, indicated autumn 2014 as the best time for new parliamentary elections, when they could be held together with regular local elections.

If a transitional government with a new majority were to be formed, most Slovenians believe that it should not be led by a politician but by an expert. As many as 60 percent of Delo respondents claim that they would prefer to vote for a new political party that might be established in the meantime in the next elections, and that such a party must be better than those they have voted for so far, which are burdened by actions from previous years, i.e., old political sins.