A debate over Slovenia’s NATO future has engulfed the nation, with a referendum on its alliance membership set to be launched. Prime Minister Robert Golob last week announced plans to hold a consultative referendum on the membership amid fractures in Slovenia’s coalition government over defence spending.

A new poll by Valicon carried out between July 7 and 8 suggests Slovenians are in favour of remaining part of the military alliance which is made up of 32 members. More than two-thirds (69%) of respondents to the question ‘Are you in favour of Slovenia remaining a full and active member of NATO’ said they supported NATO membership. Almost a quarter (23%) of those asked said they did not support membership, while 8% said they were undecided or would abstain.

Mr Golob announced the plans after Ljubljana’s parliament voted in favour of holding a consultative referendum over increasing defence spending to 3% of GDP by 2030.

The proposal was put forward by a left-wing party partner of Mr Golob’s coalition and was backed by another party in the coalition.

It was a blow to Mr Golob’s Freedom Party, which voted against the proposal, and the PM went on to announce plans for a consultative referendum on Slovenia’s NATO future.

He said he wanted “to remove any doubt about the true will of the people”.

“There are only two possible paths: either we remain in the alliance and pay the membership fee, or we leave the alliance,” Mr Golob said. “Everything else is populist deception of citizens.”

He said proposals for the referendum would formally be submitted this week.

The divisions came after Mr Golob agreed Slovenia would commit to NATO’s new target of spending 5% of GDP on defence and security matters by 2035.

Slovenia is one of NATO’s smallest military powers and was last year one of eight alliance members failing to hit the previous spending target of 2%.

In fact, it was estimated to be the second lowest spender in terms of a share of GDP (1.29%), only ahead of Spain (1.28%) which has said it will not aim to achieve the new goal.

Critics of Mr Golob have accused him of going beyond his powers in agreeing to the new NATO target without discussing it domestically.

US President Donald Trump has urged NATO nations to spend considerably more on defence, even warning he would not defend those who are not paying enough.

Signals from the White House that it will play a lesser role in European security have led to a surge in defence spending among nations on the continent.