Icelandic EU Nightmare

Will Iceland Join The EU in 2009?

From the desk of Filip van Laenen on Sat, 2008-12-27 18:05

"....former Icelandic Minister of Foreign Affairs Jón Baldvin Hannibalsson directly asked European Commissioner Olli Rehn during the video conference how soon Iceland could become a member of the EU. The island is in an emergency situation, and therefore needs an emergency solution. The response of Olli Regn was remarkably direct too: according to him, Iceland could count on an express treatment, if it were to apply, and join the Union already during 2009 – and the same applies for Norway too, he added. Other countries, like e.g. Croatia, have to exercise much more patience to become an EU member, and may have to see how Iceland is allowed to take a shortcut right before their nose. Both Iceland and Norway are already members of the EEA, and about three quarters of EU legislation is therefore already in place in the two Nordic countries, Olli Rehn cited as the reason why he thinks an integration into the EU would be so easy to complete.

But is that really the only reason? Obviously, having such a large part of the legislation already in place does play a big role, but the advantages an Icelandic and Norwegian EU membership would bring to the EU probably play an even bigger role. The banking sector on Iceland lays in ruins today and the island is virtually bankrupt, but it's not like the country has become an underdeveloped country, or would become in the near future. Chances are it would become a net payer to the EU within a relatively short period, certainly when compared to countries like, say, Bulgaria, Croatia, or… well,

even Spain or Portugal. And by the way, now that we're talking about those two last countries, their governments probably already calculated and checked once again exactly how much cod and other fish their fishermen would be allowed to capture in the Icelandic waters would the island become an EU member.

If it were up to them, Iceland could probably join the EU already next week if it's already too late to let it join the Union before the end of this week. Sure enough, the EU might try to sell the story about the express treatment of Iceland's EU membership application as one about mercy and sympathy for the poor island up in the North, but it's better to put not too much faith in it.

In fact, I'd rather like to warn the population and the government on Iceland against rushing into an EU membership to solve a short term problem. Negotiations will show whether Iceland will be allowed at all to join the Eurozone on the same day it joins the European Union. I'm afraid though that in the “best” case, Iceland will be able to trade in its fishing grounds for an immediate introduction of the euro on the island, but in the worst case, it will be confronted with an “armada” of Spanish and Portuguese fisherman catching all the cod in their waters, without even having the right to protest against it, at the same time as it is being denied admission to the Eurozone before the country is financially completely back on its feet. In that case, it will be a very unpleasant awakening from the current Icelandic nightmare in a few months or years from now."

www.brusselsjournal.com/node/3714

www.richardcorbett.org.uk/blog/2009/01/icelands-eu-membership-grows-more.html

www.theage.com.au/news/world/iceland-may-join-eu-after-leftwing-victory/2009/04/26/1240684335784.html