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Iceland has voted against resuming membership negotiations with the European Union, final referendum results showed on Sunday, dealing a blow to Brussels, which had been keen to welcome a new wealthy member.
In a vote held Saturday, 52.8 percent of Icelanders rejected the resumption of EU entry talks suspended 13 years ago, while 47.2 percent voted ‘Yes’, according to the official tally published by RUV, the public broadcaster.
The result will be a disappointment to Brussels, which had appeared willing to compromise on thorny issues to facilitate Iceland’s accession.
The result will also likely bury the EU question in Iceland until at least 2028.
Far-right leaders in Britain and France hailed the result.
“At a time when some are pushing for greater federalism and the transfer of sovereignty to the European Commission, this vote reminds us that another Europe is possible, a Europe of free, sovereign nations cooperating voluntarily on matters of common interest,” France’s Marine Le Pen wrote on X.
“Congratulations to Iceland on voting to keep their independence,” Reform UK leader Nigel Farage wrote on the same platform.
The country of just under 400,000 people applied to join the EU in the wake of a 2009 financial crisis that devastated its economy.
Membership talks were then suspended in 2013 when a eurosceptic government came to power.
Amid growing international tensions, Iceland’s current government headed by Social Democratic Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir wanted to sound out Icelanders on deepening their ties to the EU.
The island is already closely linked to the EU as a member of the EEA and the free-movement Schengen zone, ties which will remain unchanged.
The referendum result is non-binding but the government has vowed to respect it.
Debates prior to the day of the vote had mainly revolved around domestic and economic issues, though the war in Ukraine and US President Donald Trump’s ambitions for neighbouring Greenland — which he has mixed up with Iceland on several occasions — also featured.
The campaign had “lifted discussions about the EU, about Iceland’s place in the world, about our general geopolitical situation and status, to a higher level”, Frostadottir said on Saturday after she cast her ballot.
She was openly in favour of a ‘Yes’, but “we will be fine also if it’s a ‘No’,” she said.
Frostadottir had vowed that in the event of ‘No’, the EU membership issue would not be put back on the political agenda during her mandate, which ends in 2028.
Political analysts said it was unlikely the government would resign in the event of a ‘No’ victory, though it could emerge weakened by the rejection.
The campaign divided Iceland down the middle.
According to RUV, voter turnout was 82.5 percent, the highest participation in any Icelandic vote since April 2009 parliamentary elections during its crippling financial crisis.
“I’m maybe in a kind of denial that this has happened. It’s hard to grasp that it’s a ‘No’,” 37-year-old artist Elisabet Anna Kristjansdottir told AFP.
“It’s quite sad that the Icelandic people don’t even want to see the possibilities of joining the EU.”
Anna Maria Bogadottir was of the opposite opinion. She was “really happy”, but acknowledged it would now “be a challenge to unite 50 percent on each side.”
Had the ‘Yes’ camp won, the government would have had a mandate to resume negotiations with Brussels, including on the hotly contested issue of fishing — a pillar of Iceland’s economy and part of its national identity, and over which Reykjavik wants to retain exclusive control.
Any accession agreement would have then been put to a new referendum in Iceland.
The fisheries sector has been fiercely opposed to joining the bloc — 90 percent of companies in the industry are against the idea — and the EU had tried to woo them with a conciliatory approach ahead of the vote.
EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos had said Brussels and other EU member states would be willing to “find creative solutions” to Iceland’s “unique specificities on fisheries and agriculture”.
An EU source in Brussels told AFP: “I don’t think anyone (in the EU) wants to block an accession over a question of fish.”
Brussels had hoped to be able to present wealthy Iceland as an example of positive enlargement that could also make it more palatable for member states to agree to take in poorer countries like Montenegro.
It would also have enabled it to enlarge its presence in the strategic Arctic region, and perhaps helped change some minds in ultra-wealthy non-EU member Norway.
