The survey was conducted on a sample of 906 respondents in early May by the Faculty of Applied Social Studies at Nova Gorica and its results were presented in Ljubljana on Wednesday.

The survey revealed that 37.6 per cent of the respondents said they would vote in favour of ratification of the agreement, 32.9 per cent said they would vote against, while the rest were undecided.

Although the agreement received slightly less support than last month, we cannot talk about a steady decline of support, pollster Matevz Tomsic said.

In response to the question on whether they attached greater importance to Slovenia gaining access to the high seas or finally settling the dispute with Croatia, 74 per cent said it was more important to them that Slovenia should gain access to the high seas.

Forty-two per cent said they would definitely vote in the referendum, while 27 per cent said they were unlikely to participate.

Thirty-one per cent said that through arbitration Slovenia would gain control of the entire Bay of Piran and territorial access to the high seas, while 45 per cent said that the arbitration tribunal would award to Slovenia a part of the bay and some sort of innocent passage to international waters.

Sixty-two per cent of the respondents said they thought the arbitration tribunal should hand down its judgement before Croatia's admission to the European Union.

The survey also revealed that the party of former Prime Minister Janez Jansa, who is opposed to the arbitration agreement, enjoyed greater support than the party of the incumbent Prime Minister, Borut Pahor, who has called on voters to support the agreement because it is good for Slovenian national interests.

In response to the question as to which party they would vote for in a parliamentary election, 18.5 per cent said they would vote for Jansa's Slovenian Democratic Party (SDS), while 13.3 per cent said they would support Pahor's Social Democrats (SD).