00:02This is Apropos. After abandoning EU membership talks in 2013, Iceland is gearing up to hold a
00:09referendum on joining the bloc, potentially as soon as August. Repeated threats by Donald Trump
00:15to annex Greenland, which is located between Iceland and the US, have made the question of
00:20EU membership more pressing. For more on The View from Brussels, let's bring in France 24
00:26correspondent Dave Keating. Dave, let's start with what the EU view is of this referendum.
00:33Are there benefits for Brussels in having Iceland become a member of the bloc?
00:41There would be benefits. I mean, I think the important context to know here is it actually
00:46wouldn't change very much because Iceland is already basically a member of the European Union.
00:51Back in the 1990s, both Norway and Iceland had referendums in which the population voted
00:57against joining the European Union. But the politicians there decided that it just wasn't
01:02realistic for them to be outside the EU when every other country in Europe was joining.
01:06And so they created this thing called the European Economic Area that has basically recreated European
01:13Union membership, but without the voting rights. So Iceland already has to follow almost all areas
01:20of EU law, with a notable exception of some fisheries laws. But Iceland doesn't get a vote in the EU.
01:26That's the system they've had since the 1990s, along with Norway. Critics of the system often call
01:32it a fax democracy because Iceland is told what rules it has to follow by Brussels, but it doesn't
01:39have a vote. It doesn't have seats here in the European Council in the European Parliament. So it really
01:45wouldn't change much for the EU. But for Iceland, it would give some guarantees and it would also give
01:50more certainty. We're referring there to some of the anxiety that Icelanders are feeling right now,
01:56given Donald Trump's threats to Greenland, the fact that he mistakenly referred to Iceland several
02:01times in his speech in Davos, and the fact that Trump's ambassador to Iceland joked last month that
02:08the US would be taking on Iceland as the 52nd state after Greenland. Now, Ian says he was only joking,
02:14but that didn't help calm fears in Iceland. And that's why they're moving ahead with this. I will
02:19say, though, there is some skepticism here in Brussels about this, because Iceland already applied to join
02:26the EU back in 2008. You may remember there was this Icelandic banking crisis with the IceSave Bank,
02:32when almost all the banks in Iceland collapsed. There was a panic then by the government. They
02:37applied to join the EU. But by the time they got far along in the process, then we had the
02:42Eurozone
02:43crisis. And all of a sudden, the EU wasn't looking that appealing to Iceland. So they actually
02:47abandoned those EU membership talks back in 2013. There is some concern here to say, OK,
02:52we don't want this yo-yo accession talks with Iceland on again, off again. They've said this already,
02:58also with the UK, that if the UK were ever to apply for membership to rejoin the EU, they would
03:04need to know that a future government wouldn't come in and undo that. In other words, they would need
03:08to see an extremely high level of public support in the UK for rejoining the EU. They want to see
03:14the
03:14same thing in Iceland. And they're not seeing it. Right now, it's about 50-50 in terms of polls about
03:20whether Icelanders want to join the European Union or not. Now, that may change in the height of a
03:26referendum once they get more information, once people really start thinking about this. But I
03:30have to say, people in Brussels aren't looking at those polls very favorably. I mean, these
03:35accession talks take up a lot of time and cost a lot of money. And in some view here, Iceland
03:41already
03:41wasted a lot of the EU's time back between 2008 and 2013 on this. Dave, we'll have to leave it
03:47there
03:47for now. Thank you so much for joining us, though. That's our correspondent, Dave Keating, joining us
03:52there with the view from Brussels. Well, let's bring in from Reykjavik, Erika Bergman, Professor of
03:58Politics at Bifrost University. Thanks so much for being with us on the programme. As we heard there
04:04from Dave, a bit of scepticism in Brussels about the potential of Iceland making this move, holding
04:11this referendum. What do you say to that? What's your view when it comes to perhaps Brussels not looking
04:18very, very favorably at this potential referendum?
04:24Well, Iceland has always remained pretty undecided when it comes to the European Union.
04:30Iceland has the same need as everybody else in Europe to belong to the single market,
04:36trade freely and be sort of within the same zone. But Iceland has always guarded its independence
04:42also very fiercely and the idea of serenity is very strong. So Iceland has simply remained undecided,
04:50but there are still some new elements now coming into play. Well, we have a new government which has
04:57a different kind of approach than the previous ones. But in addition, the security aspects of the
05:04situation is a new part of the debate and that might change things for Icelanders.
05:13And all of this, of course, actually predates Donald Trump's return to the White House.
05:19Iceland has been strengthening its ties with the EU in recent years. Just talk to us a little bit
05:25about that. You know, it's not prompted wholly by what's been happening at the White House.
05:31No, I mean, this coalition came in prior to the second term of Donald Trump and that coalition
05:39decided in its agreement that they would put the referendum question of whether to resume
05:46the negotiations that were halted in 2013. So that was not a response to Donald Trump.
05:54But the security aspect and the sort of conflict or the dilemma over Greenland has sort of enhanced
06:03the urgency amongst some people in Iceland. But it is true that a large swaths of the population
06:11remain pretty hesitant. And is that why we're seeing so much diplomatic activity then? You know,
06:17this announcement that comes after a flurry of visits by EU politicians to Iceland and vice versa.
06:25Well, I mean, Iceland would be an asset for the European Union pretty clearly. It would be the
06:32first time in more than three decades that a net contributor would join the European Union.
06:38Iceland is pretty trouble-free when it comes to sort of upholding the requirements of membership,
06:47a functioning democracy, a liberal democracy with a strong economy. So Iceland doesn't bring a lot of
06:55baggage with it, apart from its sort of stance independence stance. So I think from the
07:04from the viewpoint of Brussels, Iceland should be an sort of an easy assimilation
07:13and negotiations, they would revolve around fisheries. That would be the main stumbling block.
07:19And given a solution on that, the rest should be pretty sort of an easy transition for Iceland into the
07:30EU.
07:30But again, it is probably a sort of a conundrum for the EU to try to wrap its heads around
07:43whether
07:44Iceland really means it this time around. And I understand that that this question is being raised.
07:50That is a that's a very valid question. And Iceland, it's already a founding member of NATO.
07:55It's already part of the EU single market, the Schengen Open Border Travel Zone, the European Free Trade
08:01Association. As Dave Keating said a little earlier, it's kind of more or less already within the EU.
08:07So does it really need to become a fully integrated member?
08:13No, I mean, and that has kept Iceland outside of the European Union, that it doesn't actually need
08:20it in economic terms to fully join the European Union to sort of enjoy the benefits of the single
08:27market of the research cooperation. For example, I participate and my colleagues in fully, without
08:35friction in European academic cooperation, travel is catered for within Schengen. So there is not an
08:45unreal economic sort of urgency. The main benefit for Iceland in economic terms would be to adopt the
08:54euro as well as the Icelandic currency brings a bit of economical problems. We have prolonged higher
09:04interest rates than almost anywhere else. Inflation remains very stubborn and it's very difficult to
09:13bring that down. So many people see benefits in the euro there. But you're absolutely right. For most
09:21economic purposes, Iceland is already within the realms of the European Union. It's just a question of
09:27whether Iceland should take the final step and actually join the union fully. And many people say simply
09:38admit the reality that Iceland is already almost a de facto member of the European Union through all its
09:46association programmes. And we don't have a date yet for the referendum. When do you think it's likely to
09:51take place? And if people do vote to join the EU, what happens next?
09:57Yes, a lot of the international reporting on the dates have been, well, not very well founded. The
10:05proposal has not been put forward to the parliament at the very earliest. It could be August, but I would
10:13predict that the debate in parliament will drag on until spring. And so we might see a referendum in late
10:23autumn or early next year. And it will also be a double referendum. If Iceland accept to resume the talks
10:33in
10:33this pre-referendum that will be held soon, that will be subject to a confirming referendum after
10:43the accession treaty has been negotiated and prior to Iceland becoming member of the EU. So this is
10:53still a very long process. But that's also a bit of a problem. We saw that last time as when
11:00the process of
11:01accession negotiation drags on for a long time, the population becomes increasingly hesitant. It doesn't
11:11really help to sort of rally support to drag the process very, very far. So that is another aspect
11:22to take into consideration. Erika, we'll have to leave it there for now. Thanks so much for being with us
11:27though on the programme. That's Erika Bergman, Professor of Politics at Bifrost University in Reykjavik.
11:32Well, that's it.
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