MP says Iceland must review EU application status

Dagbjört Hákonardóttir, a member of parliament for the Samfylkingin party and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee, says Iceland will eventually need to decide how to handle its application to join the European Union, mbl.is reports. She said the decision should not be rushed in the coming days or weeks.

“This calls for a very measured discussion within the parliamentary groups, and there are various interests that need to be weighed and assessed,” Dagbjört said.

She said she had not decided when the most appropriate time would be to make a decision, adding that national economic interests should guide the timing. She also agreed with the chair of the Foreign Affairs Committee that there needed to be predictability and a clear point at which the issue would be addressed.

Dagbjört said she shared the foreign minister’s view that withdrawing the application would make the process longer and more difficult for future governments that might want to pursue EU membership. At the same time, she said it was important for people to have predictability and for Icelanders to know where the country wants to go.

She said the application’s formal status was secondary in the broader context. The most important issues, she argued, were deciding how Iceland would honour the European Economic Area Agreement and ensuring that the country’s voice was heard among other nations.

Dagbjört said the result of the referendum was clear and there was no need to accelerate a decision on the application’s status. The current government will not apply for EU membership during the current parliamentary term, she said, and there was no indication that political consensus for such a move would emerge in the near future.

She added that discussions about what would happen after the current term were not the immediate task. Elections will be held at the end of the term, after which political parties will reopen the debate about Iceland’s direction in Europe.

After the article was published, Dagbjört clarified that her reference to eventually “drawing a line in the sand” meant reviewing the application’s status, not withdrawing the application. The headline and introduction were updated accordingly.