Eiríkur Bergmann Einarsson was recently appointed the director of the Center for European Studies at the Bifröst School of Business in Iceland. As such he gave a speech yesterday (August 31) at a Nordic conference in Turku in Finland where he among other things said that the EEA agreement was not as much in accordance with how the European Union had evolved today as it was at the signing of the agreement a decade ago. According to Einarsson this has resulted in putting Iceland and Norway on the 'sideline of European cooperation'. Einarsson opinion is, however, completely askew with the view of the Icelandic government and also the Icelandic people according to polls. The common notion in Iceland is that the EEA agreement is in full effectuality and working as it should be.To shed a little light on this opinion of Einarsson it should be mentioned that he is a deputy MP for the Social Democratic Alliance and a former boardmember of the European Movement Iceland (stepped down only last autumn). He was also described on the website of the European Movement Iceland this summer as 'one of the most active spokesman of [Icelandic] europhiles'. Nevertheless, he constantly portraies himself as a neutral and independent commentor on EU related issues and as such is on regular basis in the Icelandic media.
Einarsson is admittedly quite well educated in European issues but he is nevertheless anything but a neutral commentor when it comes to the EU.