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Icelandic Foreign Minister Thorgerdur K. Gunnarsdóttir is seeking a referendum on Iceland’s membership of the European Union on 29 August this year. She says now is the right moment, because our ties with the United States are loosening as President Donald Trump turns his back on Europe. Iceland has had a unique relationship with the US since 1951, when a defence treaty was signed between the two countries: Iceland provided a strategic location for US military forces, while the US guaranteed Iceland’s security. But Thorgerdur and her government have tried to undermine this relationship. The powerless President of Iceland, who only acts on the advice of the government, hesitated to congratulate Trump on his 2024 election victory until the silence became too loud. The President’s partner rejected an invitation from Melania Trump to participate in a ‘first spouse’ summit on children’s welfare in Washington DC on 24–25 March 2026; it was attended by representatives of 45 countries, including Estonia, France, Georgia, Poland, Israel, and Ukraine. Thorgerdur announced in March 2026 that Iceland would join South Africa’s case against Israel before the International Court of Justice. No other Nordic country did so. Trivial, perhaps, but duly noted.
Icelandic Conscripts?
Thorgerdur points out that European countries will have to take greater responsibility for their defence in the future. They cannot rely solely on the US. She is right. But the US still commands the world’s mightiest military, and it will take European countries decades to reach the point where they can defend themselves without US support. Iceland is also in a special position because she is as strategically important to the US as Greenland, and the US is therefore unlikely to cancel the Defence Treaty. Moreover, if the EU were to establish a real military, if Iceland were to become a member state, and if general conscription were introduced, the Icelanders would not receive an exemption. Perhaps Thorgerdur’s argument for a European Army could be turned against membership: it might be a political boomerang. Even when tiny, remote Iceland was ruled by Denmark, from 1380 to 1918, conscription was never imposed.
Why Brussels wants Iceland
Thorgerdur says that the EU would welcome Iceland as a member. She is right. The Brussels bureaucrats will make Iceland’s membership as easy as possible, for four reasons. First, Iceland is a prosperous country that would pay much more into the EU than she would take out. Secondly, Iceland has many resources that Brussels bureaucrats would like to control: fertile fishing grounds, an ample and renewable energy supply, and plenty of fresh water. Thirdly, this case is also about Norway. Although the Norwegians have twice rejected membership, Norway is regarded as a desirable member state for the same reasons as Iceland, only much more so: the country is prosperous and has plenty of oil. Fourthly, the Brussels bureaucrats aim at a European federal state that would compete with the US for world hegemony. They would very much like an Icelandic move from an American to a European sphere of influence.
A Secret Deal?
At first glance, Thorgerdur’s decision to force a referendum this autumn seems risky. So far, the discussion in Iceland has revealed strong reservations about EU membership, and the two parties supporting it are in the minority. But Thorgerdur is an experienced and cunning politician. She must know something the rest of us do not, possibly preparing to present this something a few weeks before the referendum. I guess it would be EU assurances in the two most problematic fields, agriculture and fisheries. In agriculture, the EU might promise an even more generous deal than the Finns received, with exemptions north of the 62nd parallel (all of Iceland is indeed north of it). In fisheries, full Icelandic control might be granted for twenty years, with vague talk about what would happen thereafter. But as British fishermen discovered after the United Kingdom joined the EU in 1973, such talk means nothing.