Iceland’s EU referendum echoes Odysseus’s siren song

In a submitted article published by mbl.is, Sveinn Óskar Sigurðsson compares Iceland’s 29 August referendum to the episode of the sirens in Homer’s Odyssey, warning that the process of exploring European Union membership could make a reversal increasingly costly.

Cinemas across Iceland are currently showing Christopher Nolan’s large-scale adaptation of the Odyssey, much of which was filmed in Iceland. The country’s landscape appears as Odysseus’s route home to Ithaca, an apt setting for a story that, the author argues, has particular relevance today.

The sirens did not sing an ugly song. They sang the most beautiful song any sailor had heard and promised wisdom and knowledge about everything that had happened in the world. The bones of those who believed them lay on their shore.

Odysseus knew this in advance. He also knew that once the singing began, no one would be able to resist it. Before hearing the first note, he put wax in his rowers’ ears, had himself tied to the mast and ordered the crew not to release him, whatever he might say once the song took hold.

That was how he achieved both aims: he heard the entire song and reached home.

The 29 August referendum, Sigurðsson writes, represents a similar moment. The song being sung to Iceland is beautiful, he says, citing lower interest rates, stability and a seat at the table, as well as the argument that Iceland should simply complete the negotiations and see what is offered.

There is no reason to deny the appeal of those promises, he writes. A temptation that was easy to resist would not be a temptation, just as no one would have needed to tie Odysseus to the mast.

But why not sail closer and listen more carefully? The author argues that the European Union accession process is not a listening expedition. A vote in the referendum would give the government a mandate to negotiate. The process would then begin with screening Iceland’s regulatory framework and adapting it, while officials on both sides invested work and ambition in the project. Each step would make the next more natural and reversal more costly.

Carl Baudenbacher, a former president of the EFTA Court, described this process in a speech at Sjálfstæðishúsið at Austurvöllur, also known as Nasa, on 10 August, according to the article. A two-stage process of this kind, Sigurðsson writes, is not a neutral investigative tool but a channel that carries the decision forward under its own momentum.

A ship’s crew that sails closer to the rocks to hear better is no longer simply listening, he writes. The ship has left its course.

The article also points to Iceland’s existing position. Through the European Economic Area Agreement, Iceland has full trading access to the internal market and cooperation in most important fields. Iceland already hears and enjoys the song, Sigurðsson writes, while remaining tied to the mast through its own currency, fisheries management, agreements with the rest of the world and an intact option to withdraw.

Odysseus lost nothing by being tied to the mast: he heard everything the sirens had to offer while keeping his course. Those who say Iceland must join the union to enjoy Europe are, the author argues, saying that a sailor must jump into the sea to hear the song.

The Odyssey is a story about returning home. Odysseus spent 20 years away: 10 at war and 10 on the journey home. All the temptations along the way had one thing in common: they sought to make him stay. He chose Ithaca.

That Icelandic landscapes are currently providing the setting for this story on the big screen is a striking coincidence, the author writes. Odysseus’s route home runs through Iceland. Iceland’s own history is also a story of returning home: a nation that gradually reclaimed control of its own affairs and has retained it for more than 80 years.