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Formal EU accession negotiations with Iceland begin
The General Affairs Council decided on Monday 26 July to officially start EU accession negotiations with Iceland. This should take around a year and allow Iceland to formally join in 2012.
Iceland is a member of the European Free Trade Association (EFTA), together with Liechtenstein and Norway, and has therefore already integrated a good part of EU principles and law. Brussels’ officials believe that the 35 chapters of the accession framework will not pose major problems. Some difficulties might however arise from Iceland’s current whale fishing practice, its generally more lax fishing policy and a need to improve the independence of its judicial system.
A further stumbling block could be the collapse of the bank Landsbanki in 2008, more precisely the money advanced by the UK and the Netherlands to pay back their citizens’ money invested and entirely lost in the online branch of Landsbanki, Icesave. This amounts to € 3.9 million, which the two countries ask Iceland to pay back. In a referendum held in March, Iceland’s citizens refused the pay-back conditions imposed by the UK and the Netherlands. Understandably such a referendum has considerably reduced Iceland’s citizens’ enthusiasm for their country’s accession.
The EU Parliament has now urged Iceland to solve the problem via bilateral agreements with London and Den Haag.
You can find the full text of the EFTA Convention here.
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