(Newswire.net — March 13, 2015) — The Foreign Ministry in Reykjavik says Iceland has dropped its bid to join the European Union. The announcement wasn’t much of a surprise since the “Euro-skeptic” government won the 2013 election.
Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, the Icelandic foreign minister, said in a statement that he had informed Latvia, the current EU president, and the European Commission that his center-right government had decided to withdraw its application, which was submitted six years ago, Russia Today reported.
“The EU and Iceland have discussed the country’s position on the status of its bid to join the European Union,” the statement reads. “The government does not intend to resume preparing for EU membership.”
Iceland applied for EU membership in July 2009, and by February 2010, the European Commission set the July same year as the start of the negotiations.
The negotiations of the country that wants to become the EU member are actually adjusting the laws and policies of that country to coincide with EU policies. That is a slow process to adopt and could take years.
The set of proposed rule changes required for EU membership, however, offset the funding and other benefits with various trade limitations. The new government elected in 2013 recognized the limitations as a bad deal for Iceland’s population of 325,000.
The major problem was placing a quota on fish exports to EU, something that EU wants Iceland to cut. However, the underlying reason for such move is not the regulation of fishing. There is concern that some EU mega companies use their influence to try to eliminate the competition.
When Slovenia entered EU, they had to limit their famous wine export along with many other products. They gain various credits that actually made this country financially dependent, which is exactly how the modern slavery works.
Iceland’s government recognized the pattern and decided to hold to its own and not to jeopardies fishing industry, which is Iceland’s main industry.
The move was characterized as the smart one because Iceland gained many of the benefits of entering the Union as a member but avoided all negative aspects of admission.