MP urges formal withdrawal as EU says Iceland bid remains valid

Centre Party MP Nanna Margrét Gunnlaugsdóttir has called on Alþingi, Iceland’s parliament, to formally withdraw the country’s application to join the European Union, while an EU Commission spokesperson has said the application remains valid, mbl.is reports.

“There is no question that Alþingi should withdraw the application,” Nanna Margrét told mbl.is. She said, however, that the decision needed to be especially clear because the application had already been withdrawn once.

Her comments followed a Facebook post in which she wrote: “Iceland is not an applicant country.” She was referring to an interview published by mbl.is in which a spokesperson for the European Commission said Iceland’s application had never been formally withdrawn and therefore remained valid.

Nanna Margrét said this appeared to conflict with information on the European Union’s website, where the application was described as having been withdrawn. She questioned how the spokesperson could take a different position.

“There is some very unclear arrangement in which we are still an applicant country, even though this is nowhere visible online and it has been confirmed there that the application has been withdrawn,” she said. She added that something described as “valid” had apparently been approved, although nobody knew what that meant.

In her view, all political parties should unite behind a formal withdrawal, regardless of whether the European Union considered the application active. Iceland’s people deserved a clear conclusion to the issue, she said.

Nanna Margrét said she was relieved by the outcome of the weekend’s referendum, arguing that Iceland should focus on domestic issues. She said beginning the process of joining the European Union would not be sensible without decisive public support.

She also questioned whether politicians should immediately return to European Union issues, including bringing Protocol 35 before parliament. The protocol concerns how to resolve conflicts between Icelandic laws implementing European Economic Area rules and other Icelandic laws.