REYKJAVÍK, Iceland — The mood at the Icelandic ‘no’ camp’s election-night gathering is buoyant. Even before the first results come in, they are already confident of winning the referendum on resuming accession talks with Brussels. She would be proven right.
When the first partial results are announced, cheers and chants erupt. The official result — confirmed around 9:30 a.m. local time — had been in the air for hours: by a narrow margin of 52.8 percent to 47.2 percent, Icelanders have rejected new talks with the EU. A defeat not only for the Icelandic government, which had made the refecenterpiecentrepiece of its term in office — but for the EU as a whole.
Interest in the vote ran high, and turnout was greater than at the last parliamentary election. Today, though, she must concede that the No camp out-mobilized her own — and that her government’s strategy of first securing a supposedly easier “yes” through a preliminary referendum has not paid off. In the end, Icelanders’ skepticism about taking even this small step towards the EU proved too strong.
The campaign leaned above all on themes at the core of the country’s national identity. Sovereignty, for one — hard-won over generations, and not to be surrendered in any measure to Brussels. And fisheries, still a mainstay of the Icelandic economy.
The warning that membership would mean losing control over fishing quotas and having to open Icelandic waters to foreign companies was a cornerstone of the No campaign, and one that many voters cited as their reason for rejecting it. Arguments from the Yes camp — that Iceland, as a member of the European Economic Area, already has to adopt many rules it has no say in shaping, or that the euro could bring down the country’s punishing cost of living — fell on deaf ears. The security dimension, which the government had cited as one reason for holding the referendum, also remained peripheral to the debate.
Part of the No camp did not believe Iceland could hold its own at the negotiating table. Another part opposes membership on principle, whatever any accession deal might have contained. Accordingly, it was the rural regions that pushed back hardest against new talks.
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