Iceland ready to start membership talks

Iceland is to start negotiations to join the European Union on Tuesday (27 July), one year after submitting its membership application. Ministers from the EU member states have yet to endorse the outline of the Union’s negotiating approach, but diplomats suggested that this will be done on Monday (26 July) and their backing is not in doubt. EU leaders had approved in principle last month the start of membership talks with Iceland. 

At an inter-governmental conference on Tuesday, the two sides will lay out the broad outlines of their positions, with Össur Skarphéðinsson, the foreign minister, leading the Icelandic delegation. The conference marks the formal opening of negotiations and will not include talks on the substance of the 35 policy chapters into which the accession negotiations are divided. In the autumn, the European Commission will begin a screening of Iceland’s performance in each policy area, a pre-condition for each chapter to be opened.

Fishing and finance

Iceland faces serious obstacles to membership, primarily disagreements on fisheries policy but also a festering dispute with the Netherlands and the United Kingdom over compensation for Dutch and British citizens who held accounts with Icesave, an Icelandic bank that collapsed in October 2008. It is still highly uncertain, even if the membership negotiations are completed, that Icelanders will approve joining the EU in any subsequent referendum.

Several EU fisheries ministers have complained about Iceland’s fishing of mackerel, one of the main fish stocks in the north Atlantic. Maria Damanaki, the European commissioner for maritime affairs and fisheries, wrote in a letter to Štefan Füle, the European commissioner for enlargement, that Iceland’s “escalating levels” of mackerel fishing had a “detrimental impact on EU fishing interests”.

By opening membership negotiations, Iceland will put itself on the same footing as Croatia and Turkey, which began membership talks in the autumn of 2005. Croatia is expected to conclude its talks early next year, while Turkey has not yet reached the halfway mark. Macedonia also became a membership candidate in 2005, but has not been able to open membership negotiations because Greece objects to its name.

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