Enskur texti ítalsks viðtals
September 2026
Hér á síðunni hef ég birt á ítölsku viðtal sem ítalski blaðamaðurinn Vincenzo Ferrara frá ítalska tímaritinu „Geopolitical magazine Strumenti Politici“ átti við mig vegna þjóðaratkvæðagreiðslunnar 29. ágúst. Tilmæli hafa komið um að ég birti texta viðtalsins á íslensku. Þar sem frumtexti viðtalsins var enska birti ég hann hér.
Ítalskur furuskógur.
Responses on the Icelandic EU Referendum
Before answering the questions, I wish to make one point clear. My opposition to Icelandic membership of the European Union does not imply opposition to European cooperation, NATO or Western support for Ukraine. Russia is the aggressor in Ukraine. Iceland's security rests on the bilateral defence agreement with the United States and on its membership of NATO. Iceland can firmly support Ukraine and Atlantic cooperation while choosing not to join the European Union.
1. The victory of the ‘No' side was not very large. What was the decisive factor behind it?
The result was 52.8 per cent against and 47.2 per cent in favour. It was not an overwhelming victory, but it was a clear democratic decision. Voter turnout was 82.5 per cent, with 225,301 people casting their votes. This exceptionally high participation gave the result considerable political weight.
When considering the relatively narrow margin, however, it is essential to distinguish between support for resuming negotiations and support for EU membership itself. These are not the same question.
The referendum result must therefore not be interpreted as showing that 47.2 per cent of Icelanders favoured EU membership. Some voters were prepared to resume negotiations in order to examine a possible agreement without having decided to support membership. When the question was put directly, the majority against membership was wider.
To understand why the ‘No' side won, one must also be precise about what Icelanders were asked to authorise.
Iceland applied for EU membership in 2009, and accession negotiations formally opened in 2010. The Icelandic government suspended them in January 2013 without an agreement having been reached. The most difficult questions for Iceland, particularly fisheries and agriculture, had not been resolved.
There has been no majority in the Icelandic parliament for EU membership since the negotiations were suspended. Nor did the parliamentary election of November 2024 produce such a majority. The centre-left coalition formed after that election did not agree that Iceland should join the EU. Its compromise was merely to promise a referendum on whether the old accession negotiations should be resumed.
The 2026 referendum was therefore neither a vote on a negotiated accession treaty nor a direct vote on membership. It asked whether the government should be given authority to reactivate the process begun with the 2009 application.
The supporters of renewed negotiations campaigned under the slogan ‘Yes, in order to see'. They argued that Icelanders should first discover what terms the EU might offer and decide on membership in a second referendum. But the fundamental consequences of membership were already known.
Through the EEA Agreement, Iceland has participated in the European single market since 1994. Icelandic citizens and companies already enjoy the principal benefits of that market. Full EU membership was therefore not required to obtain access to it.
The central additional consequence of membership would have been the transfer of authority to the European Union in fields that remain outside the EEA and under Icelandic control, most importantly fisheries and agriculture. For Iceland, these are not peripheral issues. Fisheries are one of the foundations of the national economy, and control over marine resources within Iceland's 200-mile exclusive economic zone is inseparable from the country's history of independence and sovereignty.
The choice was therefore clearer than the slogan ‘Yes, in order to see' suggested. Icelanders were being asked to authorise negotiations aimed at EU membership. Membership would necessarily mean accepting the Union's authority and common policies in fisheries and agriculture. Transitional arrangements or particular provisions might have been negotiated, but the ultimate legal and political authority in these fields would have moved from Iceland to the institutions of the European Union.
Many voters saw no convincing reason to make that transfer. Iceland already participates in the single market through the EEA while retaining national authority over fisheries and agriculture. The advocates of renewed negotiations did not demonstrate what additional benefit would justify surrendering that authority.
The decisive factor was therefore not hostility towards Europe. It was the refusal to give the government a mandate to resume an accession process when neither parliament nor the governing coalition had a majority in favour of its ultimate objective.
The result also revealed the importance of the wording of the question. A narrow majority rejected renewed negotiations, but surveys asking directly about membership showed a clearer majority against joining the European Union. Icelanders were more willing to consider negotiations than they were to accept their intended destination.
2. What are the differences between ‘your times' and the present day in Icelandic society's perception of the European Union?
When the European Economic Area was debated and established in the early 1990s, the central question was how Iceland could participate in the emerging European single market after the end of the Cold War. The EEA Agreement gave Iceland access to that market while leaving fisheries, agriculture, customs policy and independent external trade relations principally under national control.
At that time, the European Union itself was also different. European integration has since deepened through successive treaties, the introduction of the euro, the expansion of qualified-majority voting and the transfer of additional powers to EU institutions. The Union has enlarged greatly and has become a more explicitly political organisation.
Icelandic society has also changed. Icelanders now have more than three decades of practical experience of the EEA. European cooperation is no longer an abstract question. Iceland participates in the single market and the Schengen area, and Icelandic citizens study, work and conduct business throughout Europe.
The institutional relationship is also more extensive than is sometimes suggested. During the preparatory stage of new EEA-relevant legislation, Icelandic specialists participate in European Commission expert groups and other committees. They can contribute technical knowledge and seek to influence proposals before they reach the formal decision-making stage.
Iceland also participates in the work of several specialised European agencies, in some cases through representatives or observers, although without the full voting rights of an EU member state. In addition, Iceland takes part in extensive European cooperation in education, research, science and culture, including Erasmus+ and European research and cultural programmes.
This is important because Iceland is not standing outside European cooperation waiting for decisions to arrive from Brussels. Through the EEA and related agreements, Iceland participates actively in the preparation and practical implementation of a large part of that cooperation.
There is nevertheless a clear institutional distinction. Iceland does not have a vote in the Council of the European Union or elected representatives in the European Parliament. Once an EU decision has reached the formal legislative stage, Iceland does not participate in its adoption. Its influence is greatest during the preparatory and expert stages, often described as ‘decision shaping', rather than in the final act of ‘decision making'.
This experience has produced two opposite conclusions. Supporters of membership say that Iceland already applies many EU rules and should therefore seek a formal vote within the institutions that adopt them. Opponents reply that formal representation would give a country of fewer than 400,000 inhabitants only limited voting weight, while membership would extend EU authority into fields deliberately excluded from the EEA, above all fisheries and agriculture.
The EEA has also demonstrated that close integration does not require full political membership. Iceland enjoys access to the single market, participates in specialised agencies and takes part in European educational, scientific and cultural cooperation, while retaining national control over central natural-resource policies.
In earlier years, some advocates of membership presented it as almost an inevitable next step. That argument is now less persuasive. The EEA has endured for more than three decades, Iceland has prospered outside the EU, and several different models of European cooperation exist.
The debate has therefore become more practical. The question is not whether Iceland belongs to Europe. Geographically, culturally, economically and politically, it clearly does. Nor is the choice between participation and isolation. The real question is whether the advantages of formal membership and a limited vote inside the EU institutions would justify transferring authority over additional fields that remain under Icelandic democratic control.
My conclusion from more than thirty years of experience is that the EEA provides Iceland with an unusually favourable balance: extensive access, participation and influence in European cooperation without full membership of the European Union.
3. Is the result primarily a message about Icelandic domestic politics, or does it also remind European governments that close European cooperation does not necessarily require EU membership?
The result was primarily a verdict on Icelandic domestic politics. The government asked for a mandate to reopen the accession process, and the voters refused. More specifically, it was a defeat for the EU policy pursued by the Reform Party and Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir.
Its wider European significance should not be exaggerated, but neither should it be ignored. Icelanders confirmed that they distinguish between Europe and the European Union, and between close cooperation with the EU and membership of it.
I have always emphasised that I am not opposed to the European Union. I am opposed to Iceland joining the European Union. The Union is a legitimate framework for the countries that have chosen membership, but it is not the only possible framework for successful European cooperation.
Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein have demonstrated through the EEA Agreement that European states can participate deeply in the single market and other forms of cooperation without becoming EU members. Icelanders did not vote for isolation. They voted to preserve that alternative.
The message is therefore directed first to Icelandic politicians: They should not confuse support for European cooperation with support for EU membership. For European governments, it is a reminder that Europe is larger than the European Union and that different democratic nations may choose different institutional relationships with it.
4. Iceland has cooperated with the EU for many years, belongs to the EEA and NATO, and maintains good relations with all European countries. Why, then, would Brussels want Iceland to become an EU member? What problems would membership create for Iceland, and how would it affect Icelandic society and the economy?
What surprised me during the campaign was the emphasis placed by EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos on the geopolitical significance of Icelandic membership.
The European Commission did not treat the referendum simply as an internal Icelandic discussion about economic arrangements. Commissioner Kos repeatedly placed it within the wider enlargement strategy of the European Union. She has described enlargement as a security policy and as a means of reshaping Europe's political and security architecture.
After meeting the Icelandic Foreign Minister on 18 March 2026, she spoke of Iceland's ‘special reality' and indicated that negotiations on Icelandic priority issues could be accelerated. On 30 April, she referred to the Icelandic referendum as evidence that European countries were moving closer to the Union. Most revealingly, on 16 July she said that a ‘Yes' vote would give the EU ‘an applicant country again'.
Shortly before the referendum, she also suggested that Iceland could complete negotiations within one or two years. Iceland was presented as a particularly convenient candidate because it already participates in the single market and Schengen, has incorporated a large part of EU legislation and would probably become a net contributor to the EU budget.
This suggested that Iceland was being viewed not only as a country seeking membership, but also as an instrument for reviving the EU enlargement process. At a time when negotiations with several candidate countries are slow and politically difficult, Iceland could have been presented as a rapid success and proof that enlargement still had momentum.
There was speculation that Iceland's accession might be politically linked to that of Montenegro. The underlying idea appeared to be that a wealthy Iceland, likely to become a net contributor to the EU budget, could help offset the financial cost of admitting a much poorer country. Whether or not such a package was ever formally contemplated, the discussion reinforced the impression that Iceland was being viewed partly as an instrument of the EU's wider enlargement policy, rather than solely on the merits of Icelandic membership itself.
There was also a clear geopolitical dimension. Iceland is situated at the point where Europe, North America and the Arctic meet. It occupies a key position on the maritime and air routes of the North Atlantic and at the northern gateway between the Atlantic and Arctic regions.
The EU already has an Arctic presence through Denmark, Finland and Sweden. Icelandic membership would nevertheless extend and strengthen the Union's political position in the North Atlantic, closer to Greenland and North America. It would give the EU a firmer institutional foothold in a region whose strategic importance is increasing because of Russian military activity, new sea routes, natural resources, undersea infrastructure and competition among the major powers.
From the Commission's point of view, Iceland therefore offered an unusual combination: a strategically located North Atlantic and Arctic state, already largely integrated into the EU economic and legal system, capable of moving quickly through negotiations and likely to contribute more to the EU budget than it received.
These may be understandable interests from the point of view of the European Commission. But the geopolitical interests of the EU institutions are not automatically identical to the national interests of Iceland.
EU membership would not give Iceland a new foundation for its military security. Iceland's defence rests on NATO and the bilateral defence agreement with the United States. The EU is not a replacement for either. A permanent constitutional transfer of authority to the European Union should therefore not be justified by temporary uncertainty about international politics or relations with a particular American administration.
The economic argument must also begin with the fact that Iceland already participates in the European single market through the EEA Agreement. Icelandic citizens and companies already enjoy its principal benefits. The central additional effect of membership would not be access to the single market, but the transfer to the EU of authority in areas outside the EEA.
This applies above all to fisheries and agriculture. Iceland would have to accept the legal authority of the Union and its common policies in both fields. Special arrangements or transitional provisions might be negotiated, but they would operate within the EU legal order. The final authority would no longer rest solely with Iceland.
Membership would also bring Iceland into the EU customs union and common commercial policy, limiting its present freedom to conduct external trade relations through EFTA. Iceland would be represented in the EU institutions, but as a country of fewer than 400,000 inhabitants its formal voting weight would inevitably be small.
There would also be a fundamental constitutional effect. EU law has primacy in the fields governed by the Union. Membership would therefore require Iceland to alter its constitutional order in order to permit a transfer of legislative, executive and judicial authority much broader than that involved in the EEA Agreement.
Advocates of membership pointed to the euro, lower interest rates and greater economic stability. Those arguments deserve discussion, but accession would not automatically solve Iceland's domestic problems of inflation, public expenditure, housing or wage formation. Nor would adopting the euro occur simply or immediately upon joining the Union.
The real choice was therefore not between Europe and isolation, or even between geopolitical security and vulnerability. It was whether Iceland should replace the present EEA relationship with full membership and transfer additional sovereign powers to the EU.
Iceland was highly attractive to the Commission because of its geopolitical position, its readiness for rapid accession and its likely financial contribution. Those same considerations did not demonstrate that membership would be in Iceland's interest. The referendum showed that Icelanders were not prepared to make a permanent constitutional choice in order to provide the European Union with a North Atlantic foothold and a convenient new success for its enlargement policy.