Sovereignty on the ballot in Iceland’s EU referendum

A ‘yes’ vote would restart accession talks, but Euroskeptics say membership would erode the island’s independence and drag it toward war After decades outside the bloc’s periphery, Iceland is about to hold a referendum on reopening membership talks with the EU.

Is the Viking nation preparing to trade sovereignty for stability? Or is it climbing aboard a sinking ship? Icelanders go to the polls on Saturday, August 29 to answer a straightforward, yes or no question: “Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?” Read more NATO state set to relaunch EU membership talks – Politico The referendum is not legally binding, but liberal Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir has pledged to honor its result.

What stage are talks between Iceland and Brussels at? Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009, in the chaotic aftermath of the 2008 financial crisis.

The country’s three biggest banks, Kaupthing, Landsbanki, and Glitnir, collapsed in the same week, and rather than force taxpayers to cover their balance sheets, Reykjavik washed its hands of the problem and let them fail.

The Icelandic krona plummeted, inflation soared, and center-right Prime Minister Geir Haarde resigned.

Amid the meltdown, the newly empowered Social Democrats argued that by joining the EU and adopting the euro, Iceland could shield itself from future shocks – even as Iceland recovered far more quickly than EU members such as Greece, Ireland, and Portugal, which were subjected to crippling austerity measures by Brussels, the World Bank, and the IMF in the wake of the crisis.

The Social Democrats won the argument, convincing their left-wing, Euroskeptic coalition partners to vote for application.

The left agreed, with the caveat that the final membership deal would be put to the people in a referendum.

Following a change of government, accession talks were shelved in 2013.

Iceland, it was reasoned, had emerged from the financial crisis in good shape, and joining the EU would erode the island nation’s sovereignty, potentially diluting its control of rich fishing grounds, with no tangible benefits in return.

How do the polls stand before the vote? With less than a day to go, the latest polls suggest that the vote will come down to the wire.

A poll by market research firm Maskina published on August 25 shows the referendum passing by 51.3% to 48.7%.

Two days later, a Gallup poll showed a near mirror inversion of these results, with the ‘no’ side leading by 51.6% to 48.4%.

The result in both surveys was inside the margin of error, making the outcome impossible to predict.