 | |  | | Swedes vote resounding "No" to euro - official
STOCKHOLM, Sept 14 (Reuters) - Swedes voted a resounding "No" to the euro on Sunday, defying expectations that sympathy votes might lift the "Yes" side after the murder of pro-euro Foreign Minister Anna Lindh, official results showed.
The Election Authority said that opponents of Sweden ditching the crown and becoming the 13th member of the European Union's single currency had 56 percent of the vote to 42 percent for the "Yes" side, with 95 percent of ballots counted.
About two percent voted blank. The figures mean an unassailable lead for the "No" side.
Some final opinion polls had indicated that the "Yes" side had eroded a big "No" lead on sympathy for Lindh, a fervent euro advocate who died on Thursday after she was stabbed by an unidentified attacker in a Stockholm department store.
Euro sceptics feared abandoning the crown would mean price rises, less funding for the welfare state and a loss of control over Sweden's relatively robust economy. Sweden will stay in the EU but outside the euro along with Britain and Denmark.
[ Last edited by eupho on 2003-9-15 at 06:00 AM ] |  |  |  |  |
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