December 19 (SeeNews) - Public support for Montenegro's accession to the European Union has increased over the past year, according to the results of recent poll, the EU Delegation in Podgorica said.
Support for accession has grown to 65.9% from 62% last year, while the percentage of those who do not support integration is 23.5%, according to a public opinion survey carried out by local Defacto agency for the needs of the EU Delegation, the EU information centre in Montenegro said in a statement on Tuesday.
A total of 42.0% of citizens absolutely support Montenegro's membership in the bloc, while 23.9% back it in principle, according to the results of the poll, posted on the website of the EU info centre.
The percentage of Montenegrin citizens who have a positive opinion of the EU stands at 67.4%. Among people younger then 35 years the percentage is 74.5%.
"The percentage of citizens who have a positive opinion of the European Union is the largest since 2013. Particularly pleasing is the high support of young people, future residents," the EU ambassador to Montenegro, Aivo Orav, said on Twitter on Tuesday.
The EU started accession negotiations with Montenegro in June 2012. The country has opened 32 of 33 chapters of EU law thus far and has temporarily closed three.
The survey was conducted in September on a sample of 1,004 Montenegrin citizens with a standard margin of error ±3.1% for a confidence interval of 95%.