With a near 53% majority Icelanders voted to stay out of the European Union.
The ballot’s happy ending was about just one simple question. “Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?”
It remains doubtful whether the outcome of the referendum will affect the positive EU attitude from the current government. The referendum was non binding and consultative only.
In the past we saw many times all over Europe that EU sympathetic politicians ignored voters choices.
For the time being Iceland is safe. It is a wait and see matter what the Icelandic Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir’s next step will be.
At least the ‘no’ vote will heavily disappoint Brussels, as some officials had cast the island nation as a low-risk case that could help ease skepticism toward EU enlargement and strategically strengthen the bloc with military presence in the Arctic as one of many priorities.
The leader of the Heimssyn Eurosceptic movement in Iceland, Haraldur Olafsson, said earlier that Brussels is “definitely a greater threat to the sovereignty of Iceland than any other superpower in the world,”.
He added: ”The US only asks for an area to accommodate a military base in the country and a government that isn’t very hostile to Washington, while the EU wants to govern the county. They want to set the law,”.
Finally, even without membership Iceland has access to the European common market through the European Economic Area (EEA). With this type of association they have the economical benefits without handing over sovereignty.