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According to Politico, anonymous sources in Iceland speculate that a referendum may be held as early as August this year on whether Iceland should resume the application process to the European Union. After the 2008 bank collapse, many Icelanders were in agony and felt that they needed support from abroad. Therefore, the Social Democrats, who had always wanted to join the EU, could persuade the Left Greens, traditionally sceptical of the EU, to support membership. Together, those two parties commanded a majority in the Icelandic Parliament in 2009–2013. But Iceland recovered quickly from the collapse, and a new centre-right government under Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson decided in 2013 to put the application on hold. The conservative-liberal Independence Party, which had dominated Icelandic politics in the twentieth century, split over the issue, with the euromantics founding the Reform Party. After the 2024 parliamentary elections, the Social Democrats, the Reform Party, and the People’s Party formed a government.
Having No Say?
In the preceding election campaign, the Social Democrats and the Reform Party had downplayed the EU issue. But now these two pro-EU parties see a new possibility of joining, as a rift is apparently emerging between the EU and the United States. Strategically located in the North Atlantic Ocean, but with a tiny population, Iceland has relied for her security on a defence treaty with the US, while she gained access to the EU market through membership in the European Economic Area, EEA, with Norway and Liechtenstein and, for all practical purposes, Switzerland. The main argument of the Icelandic euromantics is that now Iceland has to follow EU laws and regulations without having any say on their content: If you have no seat at the table, you become a part of the menu.
Unconstitutional Surrender of Sovereignty
This argument is fallacious for three reasons. First, under the EEA treaty, Iceland does not have to follow all EU laws and regulations. It would be an unconstitutional surrender of her sovereignty if EU laws and regulations were deemed to take precedence over Icelandic law. Secondly, the small states in Europe exert little, if any, influence over the content of EU laws and regulations. The real power in the EU lies with the unelected and unaccountable European Commission. Thirdly, a seat at the table may not get you off the menu, as recent EU strictures against Poland, Hungary, and Slovakia show.
Costs Higher than Benefits
The arguments against membership are stronger. First, you decide to join a club if the benefits outweigh the costs. But Iceland is one of the richest countries in Europe and would have to pay much more into the EU than she would get out of it. Indeed, the richest countries in Europe, Iceland, Norway, Switzerland, and Liechtenstein, are all outside the EU. Secondly, Iceland has developed a sustainable and profitable system in the fisheries, a key factor in her prosperity, while the EU has maintained a costly and inefficient Common Fisheries Policy. One of the cornerstones of the EU is common access to natural resources, which, if Iceland were to join, would mean the unhindered access of subsidised Spanish trawlers to the Icelandic waters (if exempted in an accession treaty, then likely imposed by the Court of Justice of the EU). It would be the ultimate irony after Iceland fought four ‘cod wars’ in the twentieth century to drive foreign fishing fleets out of the Icelandic waters, if she had to admit them there again. Thirdly, Iceland has ample green energy resources, both hydroelectric and geothermal. She now has the right to utilise and price them at will, but she would lose this right as a member state of the EU.