Norway urges Iceland to uphold EEA Agreement after vote

It is more important than ever for Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein to respect the European Economic Area Agreement, Norway’s Foreign Minister Espen Barth Eide told mbl.is after Icelanders rejected restarting membership talks with the European Union.

“It is becoming increasingly difficult to be a small economy,” Eide said.

He said he understood why the Icelandic government had wanted to put the question to voters, given how much the world had changed in recent years. But he noted that the government had asked the public democratically and received a rejection of the proposal to examine other options.

If Icelanders had voted to restart membership talks in Saturday’s referendum, Eide believes the country would probably have been in a strong negotiating position with the EU.

“After numerous conversations in Brussels and with many EU member states, I had the impression that there was goodwill towards Iceland and that they would have been prepared to give Iceland a good deal,” he said.

The vote was not on joining the EU, Eide noted, adding that it would have been interesting to see what kind of agreement Iceland could have secured.

He said he fully respected the democratic result and that Norway would continue working closely with Iceland and Liechtenstein under the EEA Agreement.

“But I am convinced that Iceland would have had an extremely strong negotiating position if it had chosen differently. This was Iceland’s choice, and we fully respect it,” Eide said.

Eide said he would meet Iceland’s Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir soon to discuss what the referendum result means for the EEA countries.

Asked what the result meant for Norway, Eide said it confirmed that three countries had chosen to participate in the EU’s internal market and in most aspects of its integration without being full members.

“But in light of, for example, Trump and Putin and everything that is happening, it is very important that we take the European Economic Area even more seriously. We must eliminate the remaining shortcomings and get rid of all peculiar exceptions,” he said.

He believes there is now less room for deviations from the general rules of the EEA Agreement.

“And to show that this was not a vote against the EU or against integration, I think it is important that Iceland, Norway and Liechtenstein now work together and demonstrate that we are good, committed members of the EEA,” Eide said.

Norway’s government currently has no plans to restart membership talks with the EU, he said. Norway intends to remain within the EEA Agreement and its more than 100 other agreements with the EU.