EU membership would not have saved Iceland

Iceland's former Prime Minister, Geir Haarde, said in a lecture at the Institute of European Affairs in Dublin, Ireland, that he did not believe membership of the European Union would have saved Iceland from the "financial hurricane" which triggered the country's financial meltdown last autumn and the collapse of its three biggest banks, noting EU membership had not saved Latvia's economy from shrinking an expected 18 percent this year. Furthermore he pointed out that the Irish economy was expected to shrink between 10.75 and 12 percent this year while the expected percentage in the case of Iceland was 10 percent.

Sources:
Haarde in Dublin: Ireland worse than Iceland (Icenews.is June 22, 2009)
Irish GDP will shrink faster than Iceland's, says ex-PM (Independent.ie June 19, 2009)

EU membership talks considered a low priority

Entering membership negotiations with the European Union is not considered urgent by Icelanders according to the results of a new poll by Capacent Gallup for Heimssýn, the Icelandic No movement. Majority of those who take a stand believes that the government should make such negotiations either a low priority or a very low priority.

Only 42 percent believe it urgent to enter membership negotiations with the EU with only 22 percent seeing that as a high priority. On the other hand 44 percent think it should be a little or very little priority to start such negotiations with 32 percent claiming the latter.

At the same time an overwhelming majority says it is more important to solve the financial problems of Icelandic households, or 95 percent, and Icelandic companies, 92 percent.

The poll was carried out May 20-27 and 1284 people were polled.

A rather peculiar situation in Iceland

The new center-left government in Iceland, formed by the Left Green Movement and the Social Democratic Alliance, has come under heavy criticism for opening up the EU issue half-heartedly. The proposal to apply for EU membership, that has now been put to the parliament, has also been much criticised for being a very badly performed work. Not the least by the Progressive Party whom the pro-EU social democrats have counted on to get the proposal through since they cannot count on the MPs of the traditionally eurosceptic Left Green Movement for support. A number of Left Green Movement MPs have already announced publicly that they will not back the proposal which means the social democrats will need all the support they can get from the opposition.

On top of all this both the government parties claim the right to fight against a possible membership agreement according to the proposal. So this whole issue is quite peculiar to say the least and based on very fragile foundations. The social democrats are hoping to send an application to Brussels before July this summer but that may easily turn out to be very optimistic. The issue will most certainly be debated heavily in the coming weeks both in the parliament and outside it. That debate could quite easily take a very long time. On top of that it is far from being certain that the parliament will eventually vote in favour of the proposal whenever the voting will take place.

New government to propose membership talks with the EU

The new center-left government of Iceland has agreed that the foreign minister will put a proposal to the parliament after it rejoines on May 15 that an application for membership of the European Union will be sent to Brussels this summer. Before July according to the government's plans. The government, however, is completely split on the issue with the Social Democratic Alliance strongly in favour of membership but the junion colatition partner, the Left Green Movement, opposing the idea. Whether the parliament will accept the proposal is unclear.

New EU poll in Iceland

The results of a new poll on the attitute of Icelanders towards membership of the European Union were presented yesterday evening. The poll was produced by Capacent Gallup for the state television RÚV and showed 61 percent in favour of starting membership talks with the EU and 27 percent against. However, according to the poll Icelanders are split evenly in their attitute towards EU membership itself with 39 percent both in favour and against.

Majority of the voters of all the political parties represented in the Icelandic parliament except for the conservative Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) are in favour of membership talks with the EU. At the same time majority of the voters of all the political parties except the Social Demcratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) are opposed to membership as such.

There has been a debate in Iceland since yesterday that it obviously depends which question is being asked. Polls where people have been asked if they supported starting membership talks with the EU have usually showed majority in favour of that. However, polls asking if people wish to apply for EU membership have showed majority against doing that, like polls this year for the Icelandic daily Fréttablaðið.

If Iceland would decide to start membership talks with the EU it would first have to apply for EU membership. That is the first step. But it seems many people in Iceland don't realise this and think that it is possible to just start talks with the EU to see what is in the package, to get to the bottom of the issue once and for all as some have phrased it, without any commitments. Of course this is not the case.

Source:
Mikill meirihluti vill viðræður (Rúv.is 06/05/09)

The Citizen's Movement says the EU issue is not a priority

The Citizen's Movement (Borgarahreyfingin), which got four seats in the Icelandic parliament in the general elections that took place on last Saturday, has announced that whether or not Iceland should join the European Union is not a priority issue. Urgent issues regarding aid for Icelandic homes and companies as a result of the economic situation however are.

The Citizen's Movement emerged from the protests in Reykjavík last winter. In the same announcement it stresses that those protests had nothing to do with the EU but the collapse of the Icelandic bank sector and lack of actions from the authorities. This is seen as quite important news in Iceland since the Citizen's Movement has been described in foreign as well as some domestic media as being in favour of EU membership.

Meanwhile the Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin) and the Left Green Movement (Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð) are still negotiating a new government and according to latest news it may even take another week to get results. The EU issue is by far the toughest matter to discuss according to the Icelandic media but the two parties have entirely different approach to the question whether Iceland should join the EU or not.

Source:
Lýsa áhyggjum af foringjastjórnmálum (Mbl.is 30/04/09)
Býst við viku í viðbót í viðræður (Rúv.is 30/04/09)

Related:
The results of the Icelandic general elections
No pro-EU protests in Iceland

Report: The results of the Icelandic general elections

by Hjörtur J. Guðmundsson

The results of the general elections in Iceland yesterday are not a success for those who want the country to become a member of the European Union. At least not the success they were hoping for. The only party that has the policy of joining the EU and put emphasis on that in the election campaign, the Social Democratic Alliance (Samfylkingin), got 30 percent of the votes (20 MPs) which is similar to what the party has got in previous elections. In 1999 it got 27 percent, in 2003 31 percent and in 2007 again 27 percent. In other words the results are at best a defending victory for the party.

The Social Democratic Alliance can form a government with majority in the parliament with both the Left Green Movement (Vinstrihreyfingin - grænt framboð) (34 MPs) or the Progressive Party (Framsóknarflokkurinn) together with the Citizen's Movement (Borgarahreyfingin) (33 MPs) apart from the possibility to form a renewed government with the Independence Party (Sjálfstæðisflokkurinn) (36 MPs) which will probabaly not happen due to the current unpopularity of that party. But both the other forms of government are, however, very likely to mean tough and difficult talks for the social democrats.

The party increasing its votes the most is the Left Green Movement as was expected. It got 21.5 percent and 14 MPs compared with 14 percent in 2007. The party rejects EU membership. The conservative Independence Party, which also is opposed to EU membership but has been mainly blamed for last year's collapse of most of the Icelandic banking sector, got 24 percent and 16 MPs. The two parties that thus reject joining the EU the most got together 45.5 percent and 30 of the the total 63 seats in the parliament compared with the Social Democratic Alliance's 20.

The remaining 13 seats are spread between the Progressive Party and the Citizen's Movement. The former got 9 seats and the latter 4. Neither of them is in favour of EU membership but the Progressive Party favours membership negotiations according to its platform if certain very strict conditions will be met, one of them being that Iceland will hold full authority over Icelandic fishing grounds. Something the EU will understandably never be able to accept. As a result the party is generally not seen as being in favour of EU membership.

The Citizen's Movement, however, has no policy in favour of joining the EU. It has a policy that all agreements with other countries that involve transfer of sovereignty shall be put to a referendum and also that Iceland should seek to negotiate monetary cooperation with other countries or, if necessary, adopt a foreign currency unilaterally. One of the party's major policies is also that of not signing any agreement concerning the so-called Icesave issue before a research by independent experts has been carried out on what the duties of the Icelandic government are regarding that.

The Citizen's Movement emerged from the protests in Reykjavík last winter and its platform has many radical policies that the Social Democratic Alliance could find very hard to agree on. The biggest demand of the people protesting was increased direct democracy (referendums) and that the people should be more involved in the decision making process in the country. Naturally joining the EU would not be a step in that direction but rather further away.

What kind of a government will take power in Iceland after the elections is expected to become clear in the next few days and also how that government will approach the EU issue. The most likely coalition is between the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement.

The Icelandic constitution will not be altered

The Icelandic government's intention to alter the constitution so it could be more easily amended in the future did not succeed due to resistence from the Independence Party. Today to alter the constitution it has to be approved by two parliaments. This means that to do that a government must step down and hold general elections.

The current center-left government's intention was to change this procedure so altering the constitution would be possible by putting it to a referendum and without the government having to step down. The idea was to change this alongside the general elections on April 25 but now this will not be possible until the next elections after that.

From the point of view of the social democrats, the senior government partner, these changes were seen as making it easier to get Iceland into the European Union since the Icelandic constitution does not allow the transfer of national sovereignty to EU institutions such membership would requires.

The junior government partner, the Left Green Movement which opposes EU membership, however, saw this as making the constitution changing procedure more democratic.

Source:
Flóknara að ganga í ESB (Mbl.is 17/04/09)

Claims the social democrats are isolated on the EU issue

Jón Bjarnason, an MP for the Left Green Movement, said yesterday on his website that the Social Democratic Alliance is getting isolated in the party's support for membership of the European Union. Bjarnason referred among other things to the results of the latest poll showing a continued majority of Icelanders against membership. Unlike the social democrats the Left Green Movement is firmly against the idea of joining the EU.

General elections are scheduled in Iceland on April 25. The most likely outcome is a continued center-left coalition government by the Social Democratic Alliance and the Left Green Movement.

Source:
Segir Samfylkinguna að einangrast í ESB-umræðunni (Mbl.is 13/04/09)

Further information:
The Left Green Movement
The Social Democratic Alliance

Says the EU is not a product to sell in Iceland

Jónas Kristjánsson, a former newspaper editor in Iceland and a huge supporter of EU membership for many years, wrote on his blog yesterday that the European Union was simply not a product to sell in Iceland and that the EU was further away from ordinary people today than ever. Those comments came in the wake of the results of the latest poll in Iceland showing continued opposition to EU membership by the majority of Icelanders.

„The popularity of the European Union [in Iceland] is not improving. People don't even want negotiations on membership, not to mention membership itself. The EU is not a product to sell. I have for a long time favoured membership, mainly because it is better to be on the inside than out in the cold. When I began to recommend membership some 15 years ago I hoped that the EU would soon get better. That voter's influence would increase and the EU would move closer to the people. That has not happened. The EU is further from the people than ever before. Its beaurocrats have completely failed to wrap it into an attractive package. They get a zero in public relations,“ Kristjánsson said.

Source:
Fá núll í almannatengslum (Jónas.is 12/04/09)