Youngest and oldest speakers urge yes vote on EU talks

The youngest and oldest speakers at a public meeting organised by the group Sjá at Tónabíó urged Icelanders to vote yes in Saturday’s referendum, mbl.is reports.

Halldór Emil Unnarsson, a 15-year-old student and chairman of the student council in Akranes, was the youngest of five speakers. He said the vote was about giving the public an opportunity to make an informed decision.

No one could say exactly what Iceland would be offered within the European Union, he said. Icelanders should therefore at least be allowed to see the outcome of membership negotiations before rejecting an agreement, he argued.

Halldór said he planned to begin further studies in a year and would want to know what a course had to offer before deciding whether to pursue it. Icelanders should take the same approach to EU membership, he said, and see what was on offer before making a final decision.

He placed particular emphasis on the role of young people in the referendum and said the most important thing was for them to turn out and use their right to vote. He said he trusted the Icelandic public to decide on EU membership once the available terms were known.

If membership negotiations went ahead, he added, young people should be consulted about what they wanted from the agreement.

“Do not make decisions about our future without allowing us to help shape it,” Halldór said.

The oldest speaker was Margrét Kristmannsdóttir, managing director of PFAFF and a former chairwoman of the Association of Businesswomen and the Federation of Trade and Services. She said she had three reasons for planning to vote “a big and emphatic yes”.

Margrét referred to statements by the Confederation of Icelandic Enterprise suggesting that a large majority of Icelandic businesses opposed the proposal. She noted that Iceland had around 30,000 companies, while only about 2,000 belonged to the confederation.

Small and medium-sized businesses were the backbone of Icelandic business, she said, warning against presenting the position of some companies as the position of the entire business community.

She compared large and powerful companies to bullies in a schoolyard, while smaller companies were like students who knew better than to speak up and kept close to the walls to avoid them.

“There is no reason to keep close to the walls inside the polling booth,” Margrét said as she urged those attending to vote yes on Saturday.

Margrét also said Iceland’s system had been designed for some people who were satisfied with it and continued to prosper. The country could not continue with the same old script, she said, but needed a system that worked for everyone rather than only some.

Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir was among those attending the meeting.