Iceland Says No: EU Talks Rejected by 52.5 Per Cent
Iceland rejected resuming EU accession negotiations by 52.5 to 47.5 per cent, a five-point margin that defied a knife-edge campaign. The public broadcaster declared: “The nation rejects accession negotiations with the EU.” Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir had pledged that rejection would “put all EU speculation aside” for the rest of her mandate; parliament will now decide whether to withdraw the membership application entirely. Brussels expressed disappointment.
The fish won again, as they did in 2013 and as the No campaign’s “Iceland for sale?” posters always suggested they would — but the five-point margin is wider than any final poll, suggesting the quiet voter broke for sovereignty over the euro’s promise of tamed inflation. For Brussels, hoping to showcase a north-western enlargement in the age of leaving, it is a genuine bruise; for the pro-EU government that called the vote early to catch the wind of Trump-era anxiety, it is a self-inflicted one, spending its mandate on a question the country answered no. The anxieties that drove the vote — Russia, tariffs, Greenland — remain entirely unaddressed by it. Watch today’s government press conference, and whether the application is formally buried.