After more than 10 years, Iceland is once again questioning a European future. This Saturday, the citizens of the Nordic island are called to a referendum to decide whether they want to resume negotiations with the European Union, with a view to eventually becoming part of it, or not.
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The country has a complicated status: on the one hand, it is part of the Schengen Area, but it maintains its currency, the Icelandic króna, and does not participate in or is subject to the block’s institutions, such as the European Parliament. Already in 2009, Reykjavík had entered into negotiations with Brussels, but these were suspended in 2013, amid a financial crisis that affected the country, and were ultimately abandoned in 2015.
Much of the campaign has focused on economic issues, particularly fishing and agriculture, the same contentious points that paralyzed the accession process in 2015. Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir stated in May: “It is quite clear that this vote is about obtaining a mandate to negotiate. I don’t think we should get tangled up in rhetoric at this point. We will conclude a good agreement. The people will have the first word on this and will also have the last.”
At least the first word will be spoken at the polls this Saturday.
The referendum is heading towards a very close result, according to the latest polls, with a marked reduction in the difference between “yes” and “no” before Saturday’s vote. Maskína, a polling and market research company, indicates that its survey on voting intention for this decisive consultation places the “yes” side in the lead with 51.3%, compared to 48.7% for “no.”
Previous polls have consistently shown an advantage for the pro-EU sector, but also a progressive narrowing of the gap. In earlier surveys commissioned by the Icelandic media outlet Vísir, Maskína placed the “yes” advantage at 6.2 percentage points in June, a figure that dropped to 4.4 points in early August.
Former European Commissioner for Trade, Pascal Lamy, explained to Le Grand Continent: “Support for accession had fallen to about a quarter of the electorate when negotiations were suspended. It rose again after the invasion of Ukraine and, according to polls conducted in 2025 and 2026, a narrow majority would be in favor of resuming negotiations.”
Supporters of EU integration base their campaign on the economic advantages it would bring. The most important is the future adoption of the euro. This would eliminate the exchange rate volatility associated with the Icelandic króna and reduce inflation, interest rates, and international trade costs, as noted in a recent report by the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD).
In any case, this referendum is a consequence of a change of government, rather than a radical shift in Icelandic public opinion. In 2013, a Eurosceptic coalition came to power that suspended negotiations and later completely withdrew Iceland’s application for accession without consulting the electorate. The trend changed in 2024, when a coalition of pro-European parties committed to allowing Icelanders to decide whether negotiations should be resumed.
Looking ahead to possible negotiations, EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos stated that considering Iceland’s characteristics, it could easily join the European bloc in 2028: “Already being part of the single market, it could conclude accession negotiations within one or two years.”
The main obstacle and argument for “no” in this referendum is fishing. Although the contribution of this economic activity to Iceland’s GDP is decreasing, in 2024 it still represented around 8%, and almost half of its exports, as well as being a fundamental pillar of many coastal communities.
Today, the threat perceived by opponents of accession comes from the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy (CFP), which manages fishery resources among member states. “Shared fish stocks,” those subject to the jurisdiction of more than one state and involving a quota sharing system, constitute the greatest concern for the Icelandic fishing industry, motivating demands for exemptions or special agreements should the country join the EU.
In fact, Iceland’s fishing industry is structured around one of the most sophisticated quota systems in the world. This system sets catch limits based on scientific criteria and allocates fishing rights to each vessel, through quotas that can also be traded.
“Iceland’s problem was simple: by joining the Union, it would also have to join the common fisheries policy. This would have meant that all member states could fish in its waters and it could fish in the waters of other countries. But, given the balance of power, there would always be more fishermen in its waters than vice versa,” explained Pascal Lamy.
A “yes” victory could leave the other Nordic EU neighbor in an awkward position and increase pressure on Norway to reconsider its relationship with Brussels, Euronews highlights.
“We must recognize that an Icelandic accession process will pose special challenges for Norway as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA),” Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide said before Parliament in May.
So far, the Norwegian government maintains that the EEA should remain the basis of its relationship with Brussels. But the consequences of an Icelandic “yes” would be hard to ignore.
The EEA extends the EU single market to three non-member countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein, and Norway. If Iceland joins the Union, the EEA would be reduced to two members, one of them Liechtenstein, a country of just 40,000 inhabitants whose economy is closely linked to Switzerland.
In practice, the EEA would become a bilateral agreement between the EU and Norway, leaving Norway as the only major country in the European single market without a seat at the decision-making table.
Iceland would not be the first country to move from EEA membership to full EU accession. When the agreement came into force in 1994, it also included Austria, Finland, and Sweden, which later joined the Union following favorable referendums.
“If Iceland were to become an EU member, the balance of power between the parties to the EEA Agreement, originally 12 countries versus 7, would shift to 28 versus 2,” Eide said.
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