Icelanders are voting today in a referendum on whether to resume EU accession talks amid growing global uncertainty, Agence France-Presse reported.
The agency notes that voters in Iceland are not yet being asked to decide whether they want to join the 27-nation bloc, only whether they want their government to negotiate possible terms, including on the particularly sensitive issue of fisheries. The outcome of the vote is expected to be extremely contested with very close results, BTA predicts.
“This is an opportunity, not a final decision“, Prime Minister Kristúrn Frostadottir told AFP, emphasizing that the referendum paves the way for a “risk-reducing “yes“.
“This way, an agreement is put on the table and you can see all the questions, as well as the answers to those questions that are being asked here,“ she added.
Frostadottir spoke to an AFP journalist after a public meeting in Selfoss - one of many small towns that the leader of Iceland's Social Democrats visited to hear Icelanders' questions and concerns on the subject.
Voters will have to answer “yes“ today or “no“ to the question: “Should Iceland resume negotiations for accession to the European Union?“
The question also implies a choice as to whether the country with a population of 400,000 people believes it is best to remain the captain of its own ship, or to tie its fate to that of the EU.
If supporters of the “yes“ answer If they win, the accession agreement negotiated with Brussels will be put to a new referendum and will likely require a change to Iceland’s constitution as well as ratification by EU member states.
The North Atlantic island nation applied for membership in the bloc in 2009, a year after the 2008 financial crisis brought its banking system and economy to a standstill.
Membership talks began in 2010 but were suspended in 2013 after a Eurosceptic government came to power.
But the world has changed radically since then. “The EU is looking around and finalising agreements with India and the Latin American bloc Mercosur. “We are seeing a shift in the global landscape in terms of how tariffs are used as a weapon,” Frostadóttir said.
While Iceland’s economy is recovering, albeit with a fragile currency, Icelandic households are struggling with rising inflation and sharply rising interest rates; the country’s central bank has raised them three times this year, reaching 8%. This makes the euro an attractive option for indebted households.
On the world stage, the return of war to Europe following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has shaken established security doctrines.
U.S. President Donald Trump’s threats to take control of neighboring Greenland have heightened Icelanders’ concerns. Their island is strategically located in the sub-Arctic region, has no army of its own and relies on NATO for its defense, as well as a bilateral agreement with the United States dating back to 1951.
“The geopolitical turmoil we have witnessed recently is not the root cause of this referendum. But it is clear that these concerns are influencing the debate,“ Eirikur Bergman, a professor at Iceland”s Bifrost University, told AFP. (Bifröst University).
“The aggressive attitude towards Greenland in particular has caused serious concern in Iceland and has made many people here think and rethink our country's place“, he added.
However, sociological surveys show that Icelanders are strongly divided on the issue of the European Union, AFP reports.
In a country where fish products make up about 40% of goods exports, fishing - an integral part of Iceland's national identity - would inevitably be a key issue in negotiations with the EU.
Half a century after the last fishing rights wars with Britain, many Icelanders are reluctant to cede even the smallest part of control over hard-won territorial waters to Brussels. Even Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrin Gunnarsdottir, who is a staunch Europhile, has made it clear that in any future negotiations, Reykjavik will insist on retaining "sovereign control over all fishing activities."
This would be difficult to reconcile with the current EU Common Fisheries Policy.
Brussels did not intervene in the disputes before the referendum, but sent positive signals, including on the sensitive issue of fishing.
For the EU, the prospect of accepting a wealthy and stable country that is already largely integrated into the single market through its membership of the European Economic Area would serve as a good example of enlargement policy and would strengthen the bloc's presence in a strategically important region, AFP notes.