While public support for EU membership has been steady at around 60 percent over the past year, the decision on joining NATO seemed uncertain in February when supporters exceeded opponents by only one percentage point.

But the assassination of Serbia's Prime Minister Zoran Djindjic this month and a new border incident with neighbouring Croatia have made Slovenians feel their tiny former communist state needs all the international help it can get.

This is expected to tip for a majority towards joining NATO.

"Djindjic's assassination warned citizens that this part of the world is still unpredictable," political commentator Miha Kovac told AFP.

He said the recent border incident in the Adriatic sea when Croat police seized two Slovenian fishing ships reinforced this kind of thinking.

"Fear is also an element. When you're joining a defence system you really want to feel safer," Kovac said.

Slovenia will hold on Sunday two simultaneous referendums on NATO and EU membership. The outcome will be binding for the government, which is expected to sign the EU's accession treaty on April 16 and give an answer to the Alliance's invitation by March 26.

Kovac said Slovenians have also been swayed by recent visits by NATO chief George Robertson and EU leader Romano Prodi, which convinced people in the former Yugoslav republic that the world's two most influential organizations care for them.

The Delo newspaper published on Wednesday an opinion poll carried out on March 17 among 1,000 citizens according to which support for EU membership has jumped to 85.2 percent while support for joining NATO was running high at 58.6 percent.

The number of opponents to NATO membership dropped to 24.8 percent from 32.2 percent a week earlier, while only 6.2 percent of Slovenes oppose EU membership.

"Knowledge that the region is not 100 percent secure... can change (public) opinion," Slovenia's Prime Minister Anton Rop told AFP in an interview last week.

The same message was brought by Robertson and Prodi, who said Slovenia would be isolated if it failed to sign up with their organizations.

"It is a once in a lifetime opportunity for people in this country of being at one of the world's most important top tables," Robertson said.

But opponents to NATO membership have stressed that US efforts to get backing for American policy in Iraq, such as using the 10 former communist countries grouped in the Vilnius group, was proof that once Slovenia joins NATO, it will merely be part of a voting bloc rather than an equal partner.

"If you are used as a reserve voting bloc, as we saw it during the recent dispute (of the United States) with Germany and France, then you get to be completely marginalized," Social Sciences professor Vlado Miheljak said.

Analysts said the government made a mistake in neglecting until recently the campaign for NATO membership while focusing since 1999 on promoting EU membership, with regular debates and meetings organized all over the country in collaboration with the European Commission.

"The ruling political elite was arrogant and cynical. They believed that EU and NATO membership were directly linked," Miheljak said.

But Kovac said he thought the government has managed to explain to Slovenes that NATO is not only the United States but also France and Germany.

The government launched two weeks ago a wide campaign using the media to promote NATO.

Rop said the looming war in Iraq would not turn Slovenes against NATO.

"Even in the case of war, we would win the referendum," he said, adding that the small central European state bordering Italy, Austria, Hungary and Croatia has already made the budget allocations to prepare for EU membership and to transform its military to meet NATO standards.

WAR.WIRE