Iceland Voters Reject Reopening Talks To Join European Union

Iceland voters on Saturday rejected a proposal to reopen negotiations to join the European Union, after the island nation of some 400,000 people chose to maintain independence after shelving its membership bid more than a decade ago.

Heading into the vote, the “yes” camp was ahead by just 2.6 points – however opponents defeated the measure by a margin of 52.8% to 47.2%, according to RUV. 

A “yes” vote would have sent the government back to Brussels –  while any deal would have required a second referendum and ratification by all 27 member states. Now, the issue is shelved and moot.

Before the ‘no’ vote, Social Democrat Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir described the vote as “an opportunity.”

Opponents suggested this was nothing more than deception – with the government trying to convince people “that we are not really applying, that we are merely looking into what membership would entail,” Gudlaugur Thor Thordarson, a former foreign minister and current lawmaker for the opposition Independence Party, said in an interview with The Epoch Times. “If you apply to join the EU, you are applying to join the EU.”

Membership, he said, would mean EU law overriding Icelandic law, a sweeping transfer of legislative and executive power, and the jurisdiction of the EU’s courts on top.

Haraldur Ólafsson, a physics professor who chairs the eurosceptic movement Heimssýn, told The Epoch Times the question was worded so that people “find it very difficult to say no to discussions.”

Applying without wanting to join, he added, makes “a fool of the European Union.” “You should try to win over the people of the country before you submit an application, instead of submitting one in camouflage,” he said.

As the Epoch Times notes further, Iceland applied to join the EU in July 2009, months after its banks collapsed. Talks opened in 2010, and 11 of 35 policy chapters had been provisionally closed by the time a new center-right government froze the process in 2013. The fisheries chapter, the most sensitive of all, was never opened.

In March 2015, Reykjavík asked Brussels to no longer regard it as a candidate country.

The current government contends that the application nonetheless remains valid, a view the European Commission has endorsed. Thordarson disputes this. The “still valid” line, he said, was the product of government lobbying in Brussels and “came as a total surprise to all of us.”

He also said that visits by European ministers to Reykjavík over the summer to urge a “yes” amount to “foreign interference.”

Spanish Foreign Minister José Manuel Albares and his Austrian counterpart, Beate Meinl-Reisinger, both spoke favorably of Icelandic membership during visits to the country in June, with the referendum on the agenda.

France’s Jean-Noël Barrot struck a similar note during an official visit in July, saying Iceland “had nothing to lose” by reopening talks.

The Greenland Factor

The government’s own explanation for the timing points not to Brussels but to Washington. Frostadóttir’s center-left coalition, formed after the late-2024 election, had pledged a referendum by 2027. In March it brought the vote forward, weeks after U.S. President Donald Trump renewed his push to acquire Greenland, which he said has become a national security concern for the United States because of increasing Russian and Chinese influence over the Arctic.

Foreign Minister Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir said it would be “both naive and irresponsible” not to take the moment in history into account.

Snærós Sindradóttir Bachmann, executive director of the European Movement in Iceland, told The Epoch Times that the vote is “about human rights and democracy, and about standing with like-minded nations against this threat from the West,” a reference to Washington’s pressure on Greenland.

“Greenland is 290 kilometers [about 180 miles] away from us. We have to be realistic,” she said.

Eggertsson, for his part, said he was “very cautious about speculating that similar pressure will be directed at Iceland,” citing the country’s “strong and longstanding ties with the United States.”

But as larger powers grow more willing to apply pressure, he said, “stronger cooperation with allies and like-minded countries becomes increasingly important.” He added: “I would not frame this as turning away from the United States or from NATO.”

Iceland has no armed forces of its own. A founding member of NATO, it relies for its defense on a 1951 agreement with the United States. In March, it also signed a security and defense partnership with the EU covering Arctic and maritime security, cyber issues, and economic security.

The Greenland episode weighs on her, Bachmann said, and she’s concerned it does not seem to worry many of her compatriots.

Thordarson, who said he too objected to Trump’s statements on Greenland, dismissed the argument as “a pretext” and a narrative that “does not hold up.” Frostadóttir, he added, had not campaigned on a referendum on reopening accession talks.

Ólafsson was blunter: the government, he said, had blown the Greenland issue “light-years out of proportion.”

Greenland has weighed on the debate “much less than people abroad would think,” Oddsson said. “The topics actually being discussed are much closer to home: the currency, fisheries, agriculture, and questions of sovereignty.”