HELENA DRNOVEK ZORKO
Sir, - I refer to the article "Support for EU membership falls in some candidate countries" (August 22nd), according to which the support for EU membership is believed to have dropped from 42 per cent to 40 per cent.
I am not aware of the survey that Reuters refers to, nor of the data mentioned above. However, according to the most recent field survey carried out in June by the Centre for the Research of Public Opinion, Ljubljana, (1,123 Slovenians were sampled), 56,3 per cent of them would vote Yes in a referendum on Slovenian membership of the EU. This is very much in line with the regular monthly telephone polling, according to which 56,0 per cent are in favour of Slovenian membership of the EU (data for July). In fact, the support has slightly risen over the last couple of months and has not dropped below 48 per cent (data for March) in the period August 2001 - July 2002. - Yours, etc.,
HELENA DRNOVEK ZORKO Ambassador of the Republic of Slovenia,
Dublin 2