Euroscepticism hits record high in Sweden

(STOCKHOLM) - Almost nine out of 10 Swedes want to stay outside the eurozone and keep their currency the krona, a poll published on Tuesday showed as the single currency area faces a risk of breaking up.

A total of 87.6 percent of the 1,000 people questioned said they wanted to keep the krona while only 9.7 percent wanted to adopt the euro and 2.7 percent were undecided, the Skop polling institute said.

"Swedish confidence in the euro has never been as low as in Skop's November survey" conducted from October 28 to November 20, the institute said.

"Support for the euro has been in a downward trend the past two years," Skop analyst Oerjan Hultaaker said, noting that "the question is now whether the euro has become a totally impossible political project in Sweden forever."

"Something dramatic must happen for Swedes to say 'yes' to the euro in the future. It probably won't be enough for it to become a stable currency again," he said.

Sweden, a country of about nine million inhabitants, has been a European Union member since 1995 but rejected joining the eurozone in a referendum in September 2003.

Unlike Denmark and Britain however, Sweden has not negotiated any opt-outs enabling it to formally remain outside the eurozone.

And while Swedes appear happy to keep their krona, an editorialist in paper of reference Dagens Nyheter suggested Tuesday that being a euro-outsider could pose problems.

Sweden "for the time being is sliding ever further from the centre of the (European) Union," Annika Stroem Melin wrote.

"Why would anyone listen to Sweden," she asked, noting that the country's "outsider status is self-imposed but nonetheless regrettable."

"Countries that are outside (the eurozone) can't really protest when those who share the same currency meet to discuss how to resolve the problems," she said.