Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir argues Iceland is not for sale

In an opinion article published by mbl.is, Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir argues that Iceland’s sovereignty should not be surrendered, regardless of the price offered.

The prime minister has said that if the nation approves reopening membership talks with the European Union, she intends to “sell the country at an extremely high price”. The comments, Hafsteinsdóttir writes, raise the question of how much Iceland’s sovereignty is worth.

What price, she asks, should be placed on retaining final decision-making power over Iceland’s resources, making its own laws and governing its own affairs?

In her view, no sum would justify giving up a right that previous generations worked hard to secure. Iceland should not be for sale, whether cheaply or at an extremely high price.

A yes vote means a formal membership process

It is important to call things by their proper names, Hafsteinsdóttir writes. Icelanders would not be voting merely to obtain more information or “look inside the package”. A yes vote would give the government a mandate to restart the formal membership process that began with Iceland’s application to join the European Union in 2009 and has membership as its goal.

Sovereignty is highly significant in this context. It is the Icelandic nation’s right to govern its own affairs. Iceland makes its own laws, controls its own resources and makes decisions about Icelandic society based on Icelandic circumstances.

A sovereign decision can involve transferring power, she writes. But power that has been transferred is no longer in Iceland’s hands, and that is the core of the issue.

This is particularly clear in fisheries. Iceland currently controls its fishery resources, sets the rules and decides how those resources are used. The government often speaks of Iceland’s special circumstances and possible special arrangements, but it has not said that Iceland’s full control over its fishery resources must be permanent.

That is where the question of sovereignty becomes clearest. The nation is being asked to authorise restarting the membership process without the government having made full and permanent control over the resources an absolute condition.

For Hafsteinsdóttir, it should not be complicated to make an unequivocal demand for the Icelandic nation to retain full and permanent control over its resources.

Iceland governs itself today and should not need an exemption to continue doing so, she writes. The largest and most secure exemption Iceland can obtain from the European Union’s common fisheries policy is simply to remain outside the European Union.

Government surrender

Sovereignty also concerns economic room for manoeuvre. The government came to power promising to bring down inflation and interest rates. As results have taken longer to materialise, the European Union and the euro have increasingly been presented as the answer.

Hafsteinsdóttir says this was evident in the schadenfreude among government supporters yesterday after the Central Bank announced an interest-rate increase.

She rejects what she calls this surrender. The euro would not relieve the government of responsibility for public finances, build the homes that are needed or reduce public spending. There is no European Union shortcut around responsible economic management, she writes.

Iceland is not a problem that Brussels needs to solve. The country needs a government that believes its challenges can be resolved at home, Hafsteinsdóttir argues.

This is not a choice between Europe and isolation, she writes. Iceland has, and will continue to have, close cooperation with Europe and other friendly nations. The Independence Party has always supported Western cooperation, free trade and international cooperation. But there is a fundamental difference between cooperation among independent nations and membership in a supranational union.