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Comment by elric | Hacker News Reader

How do such referenda work in Iceland? Is this a simple Brexit-style yes/no question? Were people provided with context and arguments as to why (presumably?) the goverment was considering joining the EU?

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The vote was for negotiations and not actually joining. Presumably there would have been another vote on joining the EU later.

The telling sign is that the capital Reykjavík voted in favor of negotiations, but rural areas voted against.

that's also pretty much what happened in Brexit

And not just city versus countryside, but the people most likely to benefit voting against.

The EU needs to get better at marketing it self.

It's in an inherently awkward place. National politicians will tend to represent popular EU policies as "look what we did" and unpopular as "look what THEY did". It's really very difficult for the EU to deal with this.

Iceland is already in the EEA and Schengen. The only upside I have read about would be access to adopting the Euro which has a lower inflation rate than the ISK.

The main downside and likely what steered the vote to no are conflicts with Iceland's fishing industry x EU regulations and becoming more vulnerable to foreign ownership and fishing rights.

Fishing represents 40% of Iceland's total exports according to Wikipedia.

My guess is most voters in Reykjavik have near zero exposure to fishing as an industry.

And iceland might be forced to limit their business dealings with Russia.

Maybe you are not familiar with the EEA. Iceland already has access to the European single market. Just like Norway, who doesn't seem motivated to join the EU, either.

And how does that relate to what I wrote?

It is unclear to me how changing from EEA to EU membership somehow protects Iceland (a founding NATO member) against being 'forced to limit their business dealings with Russia'. That is how it relates. Feel free to help me connect the dots.

It was a added downside to the comment I was replying to.

One benefit would have been that Iceland would have got to vote on EU Single Market legislation, which it currently has to incorporate into its laws without any say.

Iceland would also benefit from trade deals with non EU countries (currently it is excluded).

It also would have joined the Agricultural policy, which would have meant better access for its farm produce.

Realistically, how much sway would tiny Iceland really have on those regulations since most are covered by qualified majority voting? The ones they care about are precisely fishing, which is unsurprisingly a sticking point. Considering they literally had 3 Cod Wars with the UK, I don't think Iceland will blink first.

> The only upside I have read about would be access to adopting the Euro which has a lower inflation rate than the ISK.

Strictly speaking, Iceland could do this unilaterally, anyway; Kosovo and Montenegro have done so, and Denmark and a bunch of African countries peg their currency to the euro.

>Fishing represents 40% of Iceland's total exports according to Wikipedia.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Iceland :

>Iceland's economy depended heavily on fishing, which still provides ~20% of export earnings and employs 7% of the workforce.[77][152] [...] Iceland's economic dependence on fishing is diminishing, from an export share of 90% in the 1960s to 20% in 2020.[153][152]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Iceland :

>[The fishing industry] provides 40% of export income and employs 7.0% of the workforce; therefore, the state of the economy remains sensitive to world prices for fish products.[

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn45vdxyvvlo :

>its fishing and marine industries make up almost 40% of exports.

Note bbc says fishing _and_ _marine_ industries

only god knows what the truth actually is

Adopting the Euro is the worst part of what joining the EU would entail. While it may have some convenience benefits, and is perhaps less inflationary, it removes one of the fundamentals of the what a government is there for: monetary sovereignty. You can no longer define your budgetary limits,m, you are always being pressured for austerity because the (mostly) Germans don't understand money, and so it is a constant struggle to get anything for the people done. What you get is a constant "management"-style government, barely scraping by..

The referendum was done specifically in two parts - 1. do you want us to try to find a deal with the EU 2. We will thrash out any details, get the best deal we can with the EU and give you another vote.

Seems like Iceland didn't want to even waste the government's time looking into this... I quite like their government treated everyone like adults.

I listened to an interview with the Icelandic PM and this seems pretty much correct. She was pro EU but equally was very clear that there were other things the government could focus on instead.

Do you want us to burn a huge amount of time and effort on this. Or would you prefer us to focus on other problems?

The exact Icelandic wording printed on the ballot was:

"Á Ísland að hefja á ný aðildarviðræður við Evrópusambandið?" Já/Nei

A very literal English translation is:

"Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?" Yes/No

That is the wording formally approved by the Althing (Parliament) on 28 May 2026 and published by Iceland’s National Electoral Commission.

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