“Maybe our rules scare them!”
Once again, Iceland has chosen to go it alone. On 29 August, the country held a referendum on whether to resume EU accession negotiations. With 52.8% of the vote, the “no” camp prevailed, in a high-turnout referendum (82.5%) with significant regional disparities – the only constituencies to vote “yes” were in the region of the Icelandic capital, Reykjavik.
Iceland officially withdrew its application to join the EU in 2015. The country still remains deeply integrated with the Union, and is part of the European Economic Area, the Schengen Area, and certain programmes such as Erasmus. This integration has not been without its difficulties: Iceland has incorporated thousands of European legal texts, without participating in the decision-making process in Brussels.
Economic concerns played a crucial role in the referendum result. The “no” campaign focused largely on protecting the fishing industry, a key sector of the country’s economy. In a country where fishing accounts for 40% of exports and 7% of GDP, the rural electorate were won over by the suggestion that EU membership would expose the island’s fishermen to European regulations and foreign investment.
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