REYKJAVIK, Jan 7: More than half of Icelanders believe their country should adopt a new currency, with most of those wanting it to be the euro, according to a poll published by Gallup on Wednesday.

But support for the euro has ebbed from some of the high levels seen in surveys taken just after Iceland’s financial crisis erupted in early October.

The latest survey showed 56 percent wanted the island to use an international currency and 22 per cent believed it should keep the Icelandic crown.

Gudbjorg Andrea Jonsdottir, Research Director at the polling firm’s Iceland branch, said 70 per cent of those in favour of a change wanted to adopt the euro while 26 per cent preferred the dollar and 14 per cent the Norwegian crown.

She said 43 percent wanted a change in the coming six months while 26 per cent wanted it within four weeks.

The small North Atlantic island nation last year saw its currency and banks collapse as the European Union outsider became an early victim of the global financial crisis.

“According to this poll it is clear that a majority of Icelanders want to adopt a new currency and abandon the Icelandic crown,” Jonsdottir said.

“However, there was a majority for changing the country’s currency well before Iceland entered the current turmoil.”

The poll showed that 44 per cent of followers of Iceland’s biggest party, the Independence Party, were in favour of a new currency while 73 per cent of supporters of the coalition partner, the Social Democratic Alliance, were in favour.

Prime Minister Geir Haarde’s Independence Party, long opposed to joining the EU, will meet this month to consider whether to change its stance on membership of the bloc following the financial crisis.

The prime minister said in a newspaper article last week that a referendum on beginning negotiations with the EU was a distinct possibility.

In one newspaper poll in October, more than 70 percent wanted Iceland to adopt the euro and in a follow-up poll a month later, some 68 per cent were still in favour of a switch.

Jonsdottir said Gallup had interviewed 1.200 people for Wednesday’s poll which had been commissioned by “a group of people interested in fiscal policy”.

—Reuters