The Icelandic parliament voted on the 28th of May to hold a referendum on the 29th of August to determine whether the country will resume EU accession talks, Reuters reported.
Iceland abandoned four years of talks after a Eurosceptic government came to power in 2013, but rising living costs and the war in Ukraine have revived interest in joining the bloc.
If voters vote to resume talks, the final terms of EU membership would then have to be approved in another referendum. If voters vote against resuming talks, efforts to continue the EU accession process would be abandoned.
Olafur Thordur Hardarson, a professor of political science at the University of Iceland, said
many voters are unsure whether to support Iceland’s EU membership
and would therefore feel more secure if a two-step process were applied. The professor said that many of those who have not yet decided whether they want the country to join the EU definitely want this referendum, because then they would be able to find out what the specific conditions for joining the bloc will be.
Joining the EU for the country of about 400,000 people would mean the bloc’s expansion into the North Atlantic at a time when US President Donald Trump has repeatedly spoken about taking over Greenland. Hardarson said that despite Iceland’s small size, putting it on the EU map would provide symbolic advantages.
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