Apparantly no one is willing to shoulder the responsibility for the Icelandic application for membership of the European Union. Today representatives from Heimssýn, the Icelandic organisation opposed to EU membership, met with Romanian MEP Christian Dan Preda explaining to him that Icelanders simply have no interest in becoming members. Preda emphasised that the application was not the decision of the EU but the Icelandic government when told that the best thing to do was to put the whole thing on ice.
Predas comments cannot be understood otherwise than as an attempt to wash his and the EUs hands of responsibility for the application. Similar comments were made by EU representatives to the media last autumn when opinion polls in Iceland were showing an increased opposititon among Icelanders to EU membership. According to the results or the latest one published at the beginning of March this year as much as 70 percent of Icelanders would reject membership in a referendum.
While the EU points the finger at the Icelandic government claiming it solely responsible for the application the social democrat Foreign Minister Össur Skarphéðinsson insists he is only executing the decision of the Icelandic parliament. Still everybody knows that it was his government that pushed the application through the parliament a year ago with a narrow majority. Within the government the junior coalition partner, the Left Greens, then points the finger at the senior partner the Social Democratic Alliance.
The Icelandic government's EU application has become such a mess that no one wants to be responisble for it and everyone points the finger at someone else.
Source:
Enginn vill bera ábyrgð á ESB-umsókninni (Heimssyn.is May 25, 2010)