Election of the Weekend I: Iceland

On Saturday, Icelanders will vote on whether to restart negotiations to join the European Union. For background: in 2009, Iceland formally applied for EU membership. The negotiations were going reasonably well, but when a couple of Euro-skeptic center-right parties won a parliamentary election, they put the negotiations on pause. Two years later, that government, rather performatively, sent a letter to the relevant Brussels address requesting they no longer consider them a candidate for membership (but, importantly, they did not formally withdraw their application.) In 2024, a new government led by the Social Democratic Alliance committed to holding a referendum on resuming accession talks, and here we are.

Polling suggests this is about as close to a true tossup as you can get. A straight average of polling would put Yes in a narrow lead, but the latest Gallup, the most recent poll and a high quality one by most accounts, showed No with a 3 point lead (Gallup had yes up by 3 a few weeks earlier, and a straight tie a couple weeks before that.) The case for Yes is fairly straightforward: Iceland is already deeply integrated into European law and society, a member of the EEA since the 90’s and a Schengen country since 2001. As such, they already follow a good deal of EU law. The “we’re already in it, why not have a seat at the table” argument has real power. Perhaps the most powerful argument on the No side revolves around Iceland’s fishing industry. Retaining independence in governing the economically and culturally important Icelandic fisheries industry is widely viewed as pretty important. The Yes rejoinder to this: we’ll eventually negotiate that point (the 2009-2013 negotiations had moved the ball pretty far down the field on many issues but hadn’t really touched this hot potato), and if the result is not satisfactory we can vote down membership then (a second, post-negotiation yes vote would be required for Iceland to join the EU). Benefitting the Yes side, there also appears to be a sense that in 2026, when NATO is fraying at the seams and neighboring Greenland finds themselves under threat from a powerful nearby rogue regime, maybe holding oneself a little tighter to Europe might be prudent. Benefitting the No side, there’s still a strong sense that their 1944 independence was hard-won following many centuries of foreign domination, and this move might in some sense threaten it. Pair this with a fear for the health of an important national industry and a sense that their small size would diminish the practical value of their “seat at the table,” and you can see the contours of a case for a No vote that doesn’t lean too much on xenophobic nationalism.

This NYT story suggests the campaign has rendered this issue annoyingly all-consuming in Iceland in recent weeks and months. Very curious to see how Saturday’s vote turns out.