Today, a week after the Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin), held its biannual general meeting, nothing has been reported in the Icelandic media concerning what was decided during the meeting on matters concerning Iceland's relationship with the European Union. Not one word! Furthermore it has proved very hard to find any documents concerning that on the internet. In fact I haven't been able to find any yet. This all points to what actually comes as no surprise that EU membership is no priority for Icelandic social democrats, at least not at the moment. And more than that it hasn't been since before the Icelandic general elections in the spring of 2003. For those who don't know, the Social Democratic Alliance is the only political party in Iceland which is in favour of joining the EU although membership is obviously not on its agenda.The new chairman of the Social Democratic Alliance, Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir, was intended by the party to become a Prime Minister after the elections in 2003. That is of course if the party would have been able to form a government which turned out not to be the case. However, before the elections Gísladóttir said in an interview that the Social Democratic Alliance was willing to scrap its policy of entering membership negotiations with the EU if that policy would prove to be an obstacle for taking part in forming the next government. So EU membership doesn't seem to be much of a priority for her personally either.
Lastly, the Social Democratic Alliance held a mail election in the end of the year 2002 among its members where they were asked if starting membership negotiations with the EU at some point in the future should be the policy of the party or not. Before the elections the leadership of the party had talked about its intention to hold it for months and the party also held meetings all over the country to introduce it (and run propaganda for a yes). Nevertheless only about 30% of the members of the party bothered to participate and about 2/3 of them said yes - in other words around 20% af the members. So furthermore it doesn't seem like EU membership is a priority for the common members of the Social Democratic Alliance either.
However, the leadership of the party claimed this was a great support for putting negotiations with the EU on its agenda but then dropped the idea completely only few months later just before the general elections in 2003 when several opinion polls indicated that vast majority of Icelanders were opposed to EU membership. Since then the leadership of the party has hardly spoken of the idea of joining the EU.
Davíð Oddsson, the Icelandic Foreign Minister, and Bo Xilai, the Chinese Minister of Foreign Trade, recently signed an agreement between the two countries which is a prelude to a free trade agreement. The agreement embodies that a joint research of practicality will be carried out for preparation of a free trade agreement between the two countries, but Iceland is the first country in Europe to reach such an agreement with China.
Europhiles in Iceland have been experiencing a rough time since it was revealed last Monday that Iceland has adopted less than 6,5 percent of EU regulations, directives, etc. through the EEA agreement since signing it a decade ago. Until now the pro-EU movement in Iceland has claimed that this number was around 80 percent and even in some cases up to 90 percent. This has been one of the key arguments of the pro-EU movement for years, claiming that because of this Iceland could just as well join the EU. But now it has been revealed that these claimes have been entirely groundless.
Iceland has only adopted about 6,5 percent of EU regulations, directives, decisions, etc. through its membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) since signing the agreement a decade ago. This was revealed today in the Althing, the Icelandic parliament, by Davíð Oddsson, the Icelandic Minister of Foreign Affairs, as an answer to an inquiry from Sigurður Kári Kristjánsson, MP for the Independence Party. The information was collected by the EFTA Secretariat in Brussels for the Icelandic Foreign Ministry. In the answer says that by far most of EU regulations, directives, etc. have to do with the Common Fisheries Policy, the Common Agriculture Policy and matters concerning foreign trade of the EU and tariffs. This falls outside the EEA agreement. Also many EU laws which fall under the EEA agreement do not apply to Iceland like laws concerning railways since there are no such in the country.
The Icelandic economy will not benefit from membership of the European Union and there is no political reason for Iceland to join the Union. This is among what Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, the president of Iceland, said in a speech in London recently according to the Financial Times. The president also said that he did not believe that Iceland would apply for membership of the EU in the forseeable future.