By a margin of 52,5 per cent, Icelanders have rejected reopening accession talks with the European Union in a crucial referendum.
It was a nail-biter right to the end. The first results, arriving within an hour of polling stations closing, pointed the other way. The “Yes” camp held its lead until 5am CEST.
Reykjavík was the quickest to report its results after voting ended at 10pm local time, or midnight CEST. Pro-EU sentiment is traditionally stronger in the capital than elsewhere on the island. In the city’s northern constituency, support for reopening talks topped 57 per cent.
But as more districts reported, the numbers turned and they stayed that way until the end. Turnout was high, with polling districts reporting around 80 per cent of voters casting their ballots.
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By around 9am CEST, the tally stood at 47.46 per cent in favour and 52.54 per cent against, with around 30,000 votes still to be counted. The gap between “No” and “Yes” was around 9,500 votes.
The result closes a road Iceland first set out on more than a decade ago. Before the referendum, Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir’s government promised that a rejection would put EU membership off the agenda.
This was not a vote on joining the EU
The referendum did not decide whether Iceland should become an EU member. Voters were asked only whether the country should reopen accession talks with Brussels.
Had “Yes” won, Iceland would have returned to the negotiating table. Only after reaching a deal with the EU would Icelanders vote in a separate referendum on membership itself.
The island nation applied to join the EU in 2009 and opened accession talks a year later. By the time it suspended them in 2013, negotiators had opened 27 of the 33 chapters and provisionally closed 11.
Iceland remains firmly part of Europe
Any new talks would therefore not have started entirely from scratch. Nor is Iceland, a country of around 400,000 people, a stranger to close ties with the EU.
It is part of the European Economic Area (EEA), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the Schengen area. Through the EEA, it has access to the EU single market and adopts much of its rulebook — without having a seat at the table when those rules are made.
Rejecting a return to accession talks therefore does not mean Iceland is turning its back on Europe. The country remains in the EEA, EFTA and Schengen. Its economic and political ties with the EU are not fundamentally changed by Saturday’s vote.
The difference is that Iceland has once again—and, for now, seemingly for good—chosen not to pursue full EU membership. It will remain closely integrated with the European market, but outside the EU’s institutions.
