Stockholm - A week after the announcement of Swedish Crown Princess Victoria's engagement and pending wedding, debate continued Thursday on who should foot the bill for the 2010 event.

In addition to traditional media like newspapers and letters to the editors, talkshows and radio, the social networking site Facebook has attracted people eager to debate the issue.

Stockholm tabloid Expressen reported Thursday that some 30,000 people have signed on to Facebook groups to protest that the taxpayers should pay more to the royal court.

The palace said the wedding between the crown princess and Daniel Westling was due in the early summer of 2010.

One of the groups formed on Facebook, the group "Refuse to pay Victoria's wedding" has garnered some 28,000 members in a few days.

"I believe people are equal and this includes royals," group founder Fredrik Nordqvist told Expressen. "Therefore they should pay for their own wedding like ordinary citizens."

Another group, titled "I don't want to pay for Victoria's wedding," has increased tenfold to some 2,900 members.

An estimate for the wedding is 2.7 million dollars, but the palace says planning has just begun for the event.

In neighbouring Nordic monarchies, Norwegian King Harald paid for the 2001 wedding of his son Crown Prince Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit estimated to have cost some 2.5 million dollars.

The Danish government and royal family split the costs for the 2004 wedding between Danish Crown Prince Frederik and Australian-born Crown Princess Mary.

So far the opposition Left Party is the only to state that the Swedish royals should pay for the wedding, using funds allocated each year for their upkeep.

The overall budget for the Court Administration and Palace Administration this year is 12.6 million dollars. (dpa)