Iceland will not resume negotiations for membership of the European Union: the “no” vote won this Sunday, the day after the referendum on this burning issue on the island. According to the final results of a referendum published this Sunday and held on Saturday, 52.8% of Icelanders voted against. This is a hard blow for the EU, which would have welcomed Iceland’s candidacy and seemed ready to compromise for it to join its ranks. Any discussion of membership for the wealthy North Atlantic island will ultimately be frozen at least until 2028.
Voters were asked to vote on the following question: “Should Iceland reopen accession negotiations with the European Union?” “. In 2009, in the wake of the financial crisis which had devastated its economy, the country of nearly 400,000 inhabitants had submitted its candidacy, but the discussions were frozen in 2013 with the coming to power of a Eurosceptic government. Iceland is today closely associated with the EU through its membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen area, in particular – links which would remain unchanged.
The government will respect the result
In a context of growing international tensions, the current government led by social democrat Kristrun Frostadottir wanted to poll the population on the opportunity to explore further integration. Formally, the referendum has a consultative value, but the government is committed to respecting the outcome, whatever it may be.
The campaign mainly focused on economic and domestic issues, even if the war in Ukraine and Donald Trump’s designs on neighboring Greenland – which the American president has several times confused with Iceland – gave the vote a geopolitical dimension. The consultation “made it possible to relaunch the debate on the European Union, on Iceland’s place in the world and, more broadly, on its geopolitical positioning,” Kristrun Frostadottir declared on Saturday.
“Everything will also be fine if the no wins,” she said, after voting “yes” in a school in Reykjavik. Kristrun Frostadottir had warned that if rejected by voters, she would not relaunch the idea of membership until the end of her mandate which runs until 2028. The government had also indicated that it would refer to Parliament the question of a possible formal withdrawal of Iceland’s candidacy for the EU. Political scientists consider a resignation of the coalition, made up of three parties with different views on the European question, unlikely, which however risks emerging weakened by this sequence.
Hard blow for the EU
If the “yes” vote had prevailed, Iceland would have resumed its negotiations with the EU, particularly on the thorny issue of fishing, the country’s economic pillar and marker of national identity, over which Reykjavik said it wanted to keep control. Then a possible agreement between the two parties would have been subject to a second referendum. Faced with the fierce hostility of fishing professionals – 90% of companies in the sector said they were opposed to membership – the EU tried to be conciliatory. “The specificities specific to Iceland in terms of fishing and agriculture are well known. They will have to be examined carefully,” declared the Commissioner for Enlargement, Marta Kos.
For the EU, which has not welcomed any rich countries since 1995, Iceland’s accession would have been seen as a positive showcase of the enlargement policy and would have allowed it to increase its presence in the Arctic, an increasingly coveted region. An Icelandic “yes” would perhaps also have contributed to relaunching the debate in wealthy Norway, which is also still reluctant to join.
