HS-Gallup | 48 per cent of Finns support NATO membership, the number of opponents dropped to about a quarter

The number of supporters is now 20 percentage points higher than in a survey commissioned by HS in early January.

Helsingin Sanomat According to a recent opinion poll, 48 per cent of Finns want Finland to aspire to join the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.

The figure is 20 percentage points higher than in a survey commissioned by HS in early January.

According to the survey, about 27% of citizens oppose membership and about 26% are unaware.

Natoon support for accession is now clearly higher than ever before in the measurement history of the HS NATO polls. HS has been commissioning NATO surveys using the same method for 20 years.

In the previous in an HS poll in early January 28 per cent of Finns were in favor of joining NATO, which was a new record for support as well. At that time, the proportion of those who opposed joining NATO fell for the first time to less than half of Finns, or 42 per cent.

Read more: Opposition to NATO membership fell to a record low

HS tea abnormally due to this time NATO-Gallup Ukraine war. Finland’s security environment is changing so rapidly that the result was to be completed faster than usual.

501 telephone interviews were conducted, which is smaller than the normal survey of about a thousand people. The smaller number of respondents increased the margin of error from the usual 3.1 percentage points to 4.5.

Gallup made Kantar TNS research director Sakari Nurmelan according to the difference is not very large.

“You don’t have to worry about the margin of error. The result tells the overall result and the change of minds of Finns in a reliable way, ”says Nurmela.

“We wanted to use a telephone interview in the HS poll because we have a remarkably long time series of NATO opinions collected in a certain way. It ensures that the change of mind is not due to any research technical issues. We can be confident that Finns’ views on NATO have changed a great deal. ”

Russia started a major attack on Ukraine last Thursday. HS-Gallup’s NATO opinions have been collected since then, that is, between Friday last week and Thursday this week.

Yle published its own survey on Monday, according to which 53 per cent of Finns support joining NATO. The survey was conducted last week and started the day before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and was conducted on an internet panel.

According to Nurmela, the way the surveys are conducted may have a small effect on the difference between HS’s and Yle’s figures.

“I think the difference in this case is pretty small. Both tell the exact same story that in a very fast time frame, some people have changed their minds. They reinforce each other’s message, ”says Nurmela.

“In my opinion, it can be said that almost every second social democrat, basic Finn and Green, currently supports Finland’s NATO membership. There are likely to be somewhat more opponents among the Left Allies, but there have also been a significant number of Left Alliance supporters in recent weeks. ”

According to Nurmela, almost half of the people in the center are now in favor of applying for NATO membership.

Story updated March 4, 2022: Added information on the distribution of supporters in the city center.

This is how the study was done

Kantar TNS carried out a study commissioned by Helsingin Sanomat.
The research material was collected from 28 February to 3 March 2022. The group interviewed for the study represents the population aged 18 and over (aged 18–79) in our country, excluding those living in the province of Åland.
The maximum margin of error in the study is about 4.5 percentage points in its direction.
The question was: “NATO currently has 30 member states and the EU 27 members. 21 EU countries are also members of NATO. In your opinion, should Finland join NATO or not? ”
The material was collected through computer-assisted telephone interviews as part of Kantar’s telephone omnibus survey. The total number of interviews is 501. The research sample was formed by multi-stage stratified sampling.