On 29 August, Icelanders will decide whether to resume negotiations on joining the European Union. This is not yet a vote on membership, it is a vote to reopen the door and allow Icelanders to make an informed choice about their European future.

Thursday evening showed 51.6% against reopening negotiations while 48.4% of respondents back the talks. Iceland has been here before as it applied for membership in 2009, opened 27 of 35 negotiating chapters and provisionally closed 11 of them. When the talks were suspended and eventually withdrawn in 2014 without a referendum, roughly 3,000 people protested outside parliament and 26,000 signed a petition demanding a right to vote on the matter. JEF Europe holds that a country’s European path belongs to its citizens, expressed through open public debate and direct democratic participation.

We welcome this referendum as an exercise of that principle and call on our fellow Europeans in Iceland to go to the polls, make their voices heard and express their will and passion for a shared European future. This referendum is an opportunity for Icelanders to help decide, together with citizens across Europe, the future of our continent.

JEF Europe firmly supports a “Yes” vote. Iceland already shares the Union’s democratic values and participates in the single market and Schengen through the EEA, and applies large parts of EU law – without having a seat at the table where that law is written. Iceland deserves not only to follow European decisions, but to shape them.

Flexible, differentiated forms of integration, unless anchored in a real political vision, risk stagnation or the progressive crumbling of the European project. Iceland’s EEA arrangement holds exactly this kind of halfway status, permanently short of the political voice that comes with full EU membership. 

At a time of geopolitical uncertainty, Europe needs greater unity, not further fragmentation. Our common challenges cannot be solved through competition between European nations. We must choose cooperation over isolation, solidarity over division and unity over rivalry.

A stronger Europe is enlarged, democratic and federal, with Iceland at its heart.

Further inquiries: 

Vice President responsible for Iceland’s politics and cooperation with the Pro-European movements in Iceland, Nea-Maria Törmänen, nea-maria.tormanen@jef.eu

Executive Board Member responsible for the enlargement policy portfolio and Europe is loading… campaign, Konstantine Gagnidze, konstantine.gagnidze@jef.eu