Icelanders vote against resuming EU accession talks

Icelanders voted in a referendum against resuming negotiations on the country’s accession to the European Union. According to preliminary counting results, 52.5% of voters opposed restarting the talks, while 47.5% supported the initiative.

As Politico Europe reports, the data were released by Icelandic national broadcaster RÚV on Sunday morning. Votes from one electoral district were still being counted. Supporters of resuming the talks performed better in the capital, Reykjavík, where one-third of the country’s population lives. In rural areas, the share of votes against exceeded 60%.

Government promise

On the eve of the vote, polls showed that society was almost evenly divided on the issue. The government led by Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir of the Social Democratic Party promised to hold a referendum after coming to power at the end of 2024.

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Before the vote, Frostadóttir called the moment “very exciting” for the country and said that the government had fulfilled its promise to let people express their opinion on this path.

Negotiations and the euro issue

Iceland began EU accession negotiations in 2009 after the financial crisis, which caused significant damage to its financial sector. The talks largely yielded no results and were finally halted in 2015. One of the factors was disputes over fishing quotas.

During the current campaign, the euro was an important topic. Supporters of resuming the talks believed that joining the common currency could partly help solve the problem of high inflation in Iceland. Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir, leader of the conservative Independence Party, said instead that the country would be better off maintaining its own course while remaining a member of the European Economic Area.