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Following the 2024 Icelandic parliamentary elections, a coalition government was formed by the Social Democrats, the centre-left Reform Party (Vidreisn), and the populist People’s Party. Recently, the government announced that a referendum would be held on 28 August 2026 to decide whether Iceland should renew its 2009 application for membership, shelved in 2013. An Icelandic entrepreneur, Frosti Sigurjónsson, has now published The EU Book: A Critical Assessment in both Icelandic and English, where he describes the institutions and workings of the EU.
Ever Less Say of Small Countries
Frosti (Icelandic has no family names; Sigurjónsson simply means that he is the son of Sigurjón) points out that in recent decades, economic growth has been slower in the EU than in the rest of the world. He notes that the unelected European Commission holds the real legislative power, not the European Parliament. Frosti also points out that since 1993, the EU has gradually been developing into a federal state, with smaller member states having ever less say. The unanimity requirement applies in ever fewer cases. Frosti recalls that when voters in a member state reject steps towards centralisation, the EU usually makes negligible changes and holds a new plebiscite. So much for democracy.
Fortress Europe
Today, the EU is surrounded by a thick wall of direct and indirect instruments. The direct instruments are tariffs, anti-dumping duties, and countervailing duties (to offset government subsidies in non-member countries). The indirect instruments include various product standards, health and safety requirements, and an anti-carbon-emission measure. Inside the wall, a vast system of redistribution operates: from taxpayers and consumers to farmers, and from taxpayers in the more prosperous member states to governments in the poorer ones (tempting them, in the process, to become corrupt). While many farmers receive substantial subsidies, they are also burdened by regulations aimed at ensuring carbon neutrality and biodiversity.
The Common Fisheries Policy
Frosti points out that, unlike the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), which is a shared competence between the EU and its member states, the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP) is an exclusive EU competence. Landlocked countries can therefore influence fisheries decisions. The core of the CFP is equal access for member states to fishing grounds. The EU sets total allowable catches for all fish stocks, catch limits, and permitted fishing gear. No member state has a veto over such decisions. Fishing rights are allocated to individual member states in accordance with the principle of relative stability (which is not part of the EU treaties and can therefore be amended at will). Frosti recalls that when the United Kingdom attempted, in the 1980s, to introduce a rule requiring that fishing companies utilising British fishing rights be at least 75 per cent British-owned, the Court of Justice of the EU struck it down.
Little to Gain, Much to Lose
Iceland controls the most fertile fishing grounds in the North Atlantic, whereas Spain has by far the largest fishing fleet in the EU, accounting for 30 per cent of the total value. Is this fleet merely waiting for the chance to sail at full blast into Icelandic waters? Iceland is also one of the most prosperous countries in Europe (alongside Norway and Switzerland, the two other European countries outside the EU), which means that she will have to pay much more into the EU than she will get out of it. Moreover, as Frosti notes, while Iceland has a sustainable pension system, probably the world’s strongest, most EU countries will face severe financial problems in the near future because of their unfunded pension commitments. This large bill will probably have to be shared, in one way or another, by all member states. Although Frosti’s analysis is sober and thoughtful, it suggests that Iceland has little to gain and much to lose from joining the EU.