European politicians and journalists visiting Iceland in recent months have been quite astonished to experience first hand how little interest Icelandic MPs and Icelanders in general have in joining the European Union. So astonished in fact that Icelandic lawmakers have repeatedly been asked if the EU application delivered by the Icelandic government in 2009 is really serious. Well, quite frankly it isn’t. It is a door bell prank. No one really is there when the bell rings and the door is opened.
There is a reason why Iceland has never before applied to join the EU. There has always been a strong opposition to membership in the country. The necessary support among the Icelandic people has in fact never been there and the present government was and is well aware of that. Still the EU was deliberately told differently. And now the EU is waking up to a bad dream and realising that Icelanders quite simply don’t want to join the EU and never have. That the EU application is in fact a lame duck.
Since last summer repeated opinion polls have shown more people against joining the EU than ever before. According to the latest one 60 percent of Icelanders want the EU application scrapped with only 26 percent wanting to carry on with it. Another recent poll showed that 70 percent would reject joining the EU in a referendum and yet another one that 58 percent don’t trust the Icelandic government to defend Iceland’s interests in talks with the EU. Finally the business community opposes membership.
There are a number of reasons why Icelanders don’t wish to join the EU. First of all it is the self-determination, the independence. Icelanders believe and for a very good reason that by joining the EU their independence would be no more. As a token of this, people in Iceland felt insulted when the European Council decided on 17 June to recommend accession talks with Iceland. On that date Icelanders celebrate that Iceland became an independent republic a little more than 60 years ago.
Another important issue is fishing rights. Icelanders will never be willing to accept that any authority over Icelandic waters will be transferred to the EU. That means that the Lisbon Treaty could never have any authority over Icelandic fishing grounds whatsoever. Agriculture is also very important to Icelanders when it comes to EU relations as polls have shown. The same goes for the right to conclude agreements with other countries on issues like free trade and shared fish stocks.
The Icelandic foreign minister has been active in feeding leading people in the EU with wrong information about the true situation in Iceland. He gave a speech in Brussels on the day accession talks between Iceland and the EU were formally launched in which he claimed that his government was united behind the EU application. On the same day the farm and fisheries minister told Icelandic media that the accession process should be stopped.
There is only one political party in Iceland which supports EU membership and that is the foreign minister’s own governing Social Democratic Alliance. The EU application was merely the fruit of bargaining between the social democrats and their junior coalition partner, the eurosceptic Left Green Movement, when forming a government in the spring of 2009. Since then, opposition to the EU deal with the social democrats has been increasing fast within the ranks of the Left Greens.
In addition, this summer Iceland’s largest political party, the conservative Independence Party, which is the most likely to enter government if the current fragile one should break apart, accepted the idea that the EU application should be withdrawn completely and without delay. The policy was overwhelmingly accepted at the party’s national congress at the end of June and the party’s chairman has said publicly that making it come to pass will be a top priority should the party enter into government.
In short it should be quite obvious to anyone that Icelanders don’t want to join the EU. An application for EU membership should never have been made.
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Iceland does not need Muslim men in their country raping their women and girls.Iceland does not need Mosques and anything Islamic.
Interesting to see the Yes-sheep running in here with some statistics spam and presenting their own facts completely irrelevant to the point of the article which is that our Foreign Affairs Minister has been completely misrepresenting the situation to EU officials, delivering them an application that doesn’t even have the support of half the people of the country.
Well, I look forward to say NO- to EU in a referendum in Iceland. Really telling them to go to HELL!!
EU = corrupted mega bureaucracy. I wonder what Icelanders don’t like about it!?
That is the problem isn’t it.
get away from who? what are you on about, son.
Poor old Icelanders,they went to the end of the earth to get away from them but still they were groomed for abuse.
But it was deemed illegal,have any ‘Icelanders’actually been arrested for sedition?
I am so sorry…I originally thought that this article was written by a credible journalist who was just misinformed…
I have now found out that it is just propaganda from the Heimssyn organization which considers people like Daniel Hannah to be a leading voice on European affairs.
No wonder it was so full of lies, slander, misinformation and propaganda…but that is Heimssyn for you.
This article fails to offer any relevant insight on why polls in Iceland are showing resistance towards EU membership.
“The necessary support among the Icelandic people has in fact never been there and the present government was and is well aware of that. ”
– This is plainly wrong. The Social Democrats were offered a mandate to lead the coalition government in 2009. Their plan for Iceland to get out of the mess is EU Membership. The result of the election was widely interpreted as Iceland moving in that direction.
“Since last summer repeated opinion polls have shown more people against joining the EU than ever before.” – You would have to understand a little bit about Icelandic politics to realise what is going on. There was an economic and political crash in 2008, worse than just about anywhere else. People are scared and confused. There are many rabble rousers making loud noises and xenophobia is on the rise. Yes, people are unhappy at the current state of Iceland and express it in polls.
“First of all it is the self-determination, the independence. Icelanders believe and for a very good reason that by joining the EU their independence would be no more.”
– For a good reason??? Iceland can hardly be described as a model independent country today. We are and have been since 2008 dependent on the good nations of the EU to hand us a lifeline through the IMF. Independence was achieved in 1944 but it was the US which “allowed” us to go through with it and supported us from being a developing country to development in the latter half of the 20th century. Without the US’s backing because of a strategic cold war position, Icelanders would not have developed this mistaken sense of invincibility and stubborn mistrust of foreigners. The June 17th issue was not insulting to anyone and did not trouble nobody but those who held the reins in the corrupt government that ruled Iceland in the last couple of decades.
“Icelanders will never be willing to accept that any authority over Icelandic waters will be transferred to the EU.”
– The corrupt fishing industry already owes an almighty sum to European banks and is already mostly using Euros themselves. And it remains to be seen what the contract on membership will say on this issue. Fortunately now we have a chance to find out.
“Agriculture is also very important to Icelanders”
– No, it is very important to the farmers lobby to keep its status as the world’s most subsidized agriculture.
“He gave a speech in Brussels on the day accession talks between Iceland and the EU were formally launched in which he claimed that his government was united behind the EU application. On the same day the farm and fisheries minister told Icelandic media that the accession process should be stopped”
– Yes, this is true. But the fisheries minister is talking against the coalition government’s agreement that Iceland should hold membership talks with the EU. The fisheries minister is an offspring of the corrupt rural politics which have maintained an iron grip on Icelandic policies through an incredibly unfair voting system where votes in rural areas count more than double those in urban areas. His interests lie with the big farmers, not with average Icelandic households and everybody knows this.
“There is only one political party in Iceland which supports EU membership and that is the foreign minister’s own governing Social Democratic Alliance.”
– Yes, and all the other parties are severely damaged after the economic collapse and have yet to go through the reform necessary to form a vision and a future plan for Iceland and its citizens. The SD’s at least have a plan which has for a long time been EU membership to get a grip on currency matters, inflation, consumer issues, imports and exports and international relations. The other parties are all ablaze in infighting and realpolitik which makes them absolutely unfit to make any decisions or put forth responsible policies.
“In addition, this summer Iceland’s largest political party, the conservative Independence Party, which is the most likely to enter government if the current fragile one should break apart, accepted the idea that the EU application should be withdrawn completely and without delay. The policy was overwhelmingly accepted at the party’s national congress at the end of June and the party’s chairman has said publicly that making it come to pass will be a top priority should the party enter into government.”
– The Independence Party is responsible for one of the biggest economic collapses in history. It is massively corrupt and badly in need of serious reform and shake up within. The old guard is holding firm and managed to push this idea at the meeting. Interestingly, the fishing lobby which are the main backers of the party now that the banks and big businesses can no longer feed it with money in exchange for policies, later claimed that it wanted EU talks to go on and a national referendum.
Please, if you are going to post stories like this, try to find out reasons behind the facts. Iceland is in a very vulnerable state right now. Maybe Iceland is too underdeveloped to become an EU member? But we are seriously lacking alternatives…
This article is a load of simple rubbish, based on the writings of the one of the most No-fanatics in Iceland, Hjortur J. Guðmundsson, now a journalist for the daily Mogunbladid, edited by the former PM, David Oddsson, another No-fanatic.
“Finally the business community opposes membership.” This is simply a lie, a large part of the business community favours EU-membership. Why? Because of the urgent need for a stable business environment, and a usable currency (which is these days in a quarantine!)
The public opninion has shifted, that is correct, but in recent years there has been a strong support for application and even membership. See here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Accession_of_Iceland_to_the_European_Union#Public_opinion
Another fact: Most of the biggest fishing companies ar now using the EURO as a working currency. Why?
But there is a small group of the population that benefits from status quo, and they are the strongest supporters of NO!
Icelanders will not loose the independence and the right to self-determination. Ask a Dane or a Slovene if the are not free?
This is the right time to apply, the negotiations will start next year. A favourable outcome, espcially regarding fisheries, will have a big impact on the outcome.
The EU has no fishing rights in Icelandic waters, from 1976, we have a 200 mile economic zone, afer the cod wars with the UK.
NO-sayers say that the 200 mile zone will be full of EU-trawlers. Nothing is further from the truth.
They use scare-mongering, it’s their weapon of choice. The rely on the limited knowledge of Icelanders about the EU.
After the fall of the 3 major banks in Iceland, there was a big increase in the number of people who wanted to apply. The fall of the Icelandic Krona and the house-loans connected to foreign currencies left a large part of the population and companies in great debt.
Connecting loans to foreign currencies has now been ruled illegal by the Iceland Supreme Court. This has changed people opinion on applying.
And what is hard to look past, is that if Iceland would not have it’s own currency the crisis would have probably been deeper and longer.
Because of the large fall of the Icelandic Krona the Import/Export has been positive.
Without it’s own currency the The Central Bank of Iceland could not have raised and now lowered the interest.
This couldn’t be more accurate. Only 29,8% of the population who voted Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) wish to “apply” for membership. The remaining voters (71,2%) don’t even want to apply, let alone join the EU. And even in those 29,8% are people who would only join if Iceland would get a special contract in regards to fishing. Which will probably never happen.
YYYYYYesss finally someone outside Iceland that understands that the Social Democrats, that actually got only 19% in last election for city of Reykjavik (yes only 1/5) has been forcing this through, by threatening the Left-Green they will stop the coalition if they do not say yes. And of course the Left-Green want to stay in power (even if the majority of the nation wants right-ish government) – they simply plan to stop it when the actual voting for yes or no will happen. At the same time the public is even getting more against it due to the Icesave politicial threats from larger nations – the fact is that no laws say Iceland should pay this. So no wonder the no-people are in very large quantities in Iceland.