Iceland’s closely fought referendum on whether to resume membership talks with the European Union is going down to wire, with the result too close to call.<\/p>\n
Based on the first 153,197 votes counted of the 270,000 voters eligible, 50.1% rejected the government’s proposal, while 49.9% said yes, public broadcaster RUV said, with just 435 votes splitting them. <\/p>\n
Prime Minister Kristr\u00fan Frostad\u00f3ttir’s centre-left government promised to hold a referendum by 2027, but brought it forward because of international tensions, including US President Donald Trump’s threats against Greenland.<\/p>\n
However, debate in this island nation of almost 400,000 people centred more on its fishing industry rather than security concerns.<\/p>\n
Already part of the EU’s single market and Schengen border-free zone, EU membership would bring Iceland into the customs union and eventually the euro.<\/p>\n
Iceland began its application to join the EU in 2009 in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis and the collapse of Iceland’s banking system. <\/p>\n
Its application was already well advanced when a eurosceptic government came to power in 2013 and put talks on hold. Fishing rights was the biggest obstacle then – as it remains today.<\/p>\n
Fish and marine industries account for almost 40% of Iceland’s exports and many No voters feared they would cede some control of their lucrative fishing grounds under the EU’s common fisheries policy.<\/p>\n
The referendum campaign has fuelled debate about Iceland’s place in the world, Frostadottir said after casting her ballot in the capital on Saturday.<\/p>\n
“This is a great day, we’ve been waiting for this for years to be able to have a vote,” Frostadottir said, adding that her government would continue its work regardless of the outcome.<\/p>\n
The question on the ballot was: “Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?”<\/p>\n
A Yes vote would not be a final decision on joining the EU, but a move towards an accession agreement, which would then have to be approved by a second referendum. <\/p>\n
Equally, the No vote would not rule out the chance of Iceland resuming talks in the future.<\/p>\n
While economic issues dominated the referendum campaigns, security concerns also featured. <\/p>\n
Iceland is a founder member of Nato but it has no military and relies on its allies for defence.<\/p>\n
The country has backed Ukraine during Russia’s full-scale invasion and officials have been alarmed by Russia’s increased maritime manoeuvres near the island.<\/p>\n
Trump’s expressed interest in taking over Greenland has also raised concerns.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iceland’s closely fought referendum on whether to resume membership talks with the European Union is going down to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":754316,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[49,50,51,47,52,48],"class_list":["post-754315","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-headlines","tag-news","tag-top-news","tag-top-stories","tag-topnews","tag-topstories"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754315","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=754315"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/754315\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/754316"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=754315"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=754315"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=754315"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}