Iceland has voted to reject the government’s proposal to resume talks to join the European Union (EU), with the “no” camp narrowly surpassing the “yes” camp with 52.8 percent of votes (118,040) against the other’s 47.2 percent (105,339). It is a narrow victory, but one that will shelve talks about joining the bloc for at least two more years, dealing a significant blow to both Brussels and Reykjavík, and suggests that President Donald Trump’s threat to annex Greenland was not enough to sway voters. Iceland, a nation of roughly 400,000 people located in the North Atlantic Ocean between Europe and North America, first sought EU membership in 2009, in the midst of the Great Recession.
But, since then, euroskeptics have stalled negotiations. The country is already part of the European Economic Area (which comprises the 27 EU member states and three non-EU nations - Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway - into a single internal market) and benefits from the passport-free Schengen zone, which allows residents of member states to travel freely across borders. But it is not, crucially, part of the EU - a membership which implies meeting certain conditions as well as abiding to certain requirements.
The knife-edge referendum, which swung back and forth through the night, weighed the threat of the Trump administration against issues of cultural identity, sovereignty, defence, housing, natural resources, and farming and fishing rights if joining the EU. Some supporters of the "yes" vote argued the EU could offer protections if Trump ever made similar threats against Iceland to those made against Greenland. Rural and coastal constituencies, which include fishing communities traditionally opposed to EU quota-sharing rules, delivered the “no” camp majorities of over 65 percent in several districts, tipping the scale in the night between Saturday and Sunday clearly to one side.
This is a developing story and will be updated.
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