Iceland rejects renewed EU membership talks

Icelanders voted against reopening membership negotiations with the European Union, but Foreign Minister and Viðreisn leader Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir has described the result as only a temporary setback, according to a column by Björn Bjarnason published by mbl.is.

In the 29 August referendum, 52.84 per cent of voters rejected restarting the negotiations, while 47.16 per cent supported the proposal. Turnout was 82.5 per cent.

The government did not receive the mandate it had sought. However, Gunnarsdóttir did not appear to regard the result as a rejection of the political path she had set out.

On Facebook, she said the work would continue. The European Union had never been an end in itself, she wrote, but one possible route towards the broader goals of long-term stability, security and a stronger position for Iceland. Although that route would not be taken this time, those goals remained unchanged.

Bjarnason argues that the phrase “this time” reveals her position: the negotiations have been rejected, but Viðreisn’s leader and the author of the referendum provision appear to view the decision as only a temporary pause. He questions how the minister can say she respects the result while describing it as a temporary obstacle, writing that this reflects an EU-style view in which a no is temporary but a yes is permanent.

The initiative came from the Icelandic government. On 15 January 2025, Gunnarsdóttir travelled to Brussels and began talks with officials responsible for EU enlargement. The European Commission welcomed her interest, saying that Iceland’s 2009 application was still valid, referring to Iceland as a candidate country and discussing a swift resumption of negotiations.

The government interpreted the interest from EU officials as evidence that Iceland would have a strong negotiating position. When the referendum decision was announced on 6 March 2026, Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir said the government considered its negotiating position strong at that time.

However, there were no binding commitments on fisheries or agriculture. The EU’s 27 member states had not approved special arrangements for Iceland, and the government had not itself defined precise negotiating objectives.

Bjarnason writes that the window seen by the ministers was therefore not a negotiating window in substantive terms. It had opened through their contacts with the European Commission and influential politicians within the EU.

On 16 June 2026, the EU Council agreed to be ready to restart the process if Icelanders voted yes. The Commission had persuaded the member states to prepare for the next step. Its officials then discussed the possibility that Iceland could catch up with Montenegro in the enlargement process and that the two countries might even join the EU together in 2028.

Bjarnason writes that this would hardly have happened unless Commission representatives believed an Icelandic yes was a realistic possibility. Icelandic ministers must have explained their assessment of the situation to their counterparts and considered victory likely, he argues.

He says the government viewed the enthusiasm of EU officials as confirmation of its own assessment, while the Commission saw the government’s initiative as an opportunity to open a gap in the enlargement process. In his view, each side reinforced the other’s confidence, and both were mistaken.

Viðreisn also used its links with the ALDE party group and Renew Europe, the liberal political group in the European Parliament. Guy Verhofstadt, a leader and ideological figure in those groups, urged Viðreisn members at the party’s national congress in September 2025 not to allow opponents of EU membership to control either the debate in Iceland or the implementation of the referendum.

Valérie Hayer, president of Renew Europe in the European Parliament, urged the EU to make every effort to bring Iceland into the Union.