Iceland should weigh EU vote through confidence, Baudenbacher says

In a submitted article published by mbl.is, Carl Baudenbacher argues that Iceland’s planned referendum on European Union membership should be assessed through national self-confidence rather than fear. He says it is currently difficult to identify a convincing argument for Iceland joining the EU.

Iceland is already deeply integrated with Europe through the European Economic Area, Schengen and broader legal and political cooperation, Baudenbacher writes. The real question, he says, is not whether Iceland belongs in Europe, but whether it should abandon the established EEA and EFTA model in favour of full EU membership.

Iceland’s geography also resists simple classifications, he argues. The country rises from the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, with one foot on the North American Plate and the other on the Eurasian Plate. It is inherently an Atlantic country, European in its history and institutions, and Icelandic in its political experience.

Because the positive arguments for membership are weak, the campaign for EU accession risks becoming fear politics, Baudenbacher says. Geopolitical concerns, whether relating to Greenland or broader uncertainty in Washington, are not enough to justify membership.

He also questions the claim that EU membership would give Iceland greater security. Iceland’s security still rests on NATO, its defence relationship with the United States and the wider North Atlantic security system, he writes. EU membership would have political and symbolic value, but would not provide a decisive security guarantee.

The EEA and EFTA model is not a waiting room for EU membership but a functioning institutional arrangement, Baudenbacher argues. It gives Iceland broad access to the single market while preserving control over fisheries, agriculture, its currency, energy, trade policy and, most importantly, an independent EFTA pillar.

The Icesave case showed why that autonomy matters in practice, he writes. It was not only a financial dispute but also a test of whether a small state could defend its legal position when faced with strong political pressure from outside. Iceland did so before the EFTA Court, and the outcome confirmed that this institutional room for manoeuvre can have real value.

EU membership would move Iceland out of the EEA’s two-pillar system and into the EU’s own institutional framework. In exchange for a very small seat at the EU institutions’ decision-making table, Iceland would have to leave the EFTA pillar, including ESA and the EFTA Court.

Any safeguards negotiated during accession would operate within a system overseen by the European Commission and interpreted by the Court of Justice of the European Union. Iceland would gain formal participation in decision-making in Brussels, but would also lose practical autonomy in areas of major constitutional and economic importance, Baudenbacher writes.

Fisheries are the clearest example. They are not merely another industry in Iceland but part of the country’s national identity, regional life and long-term resource policy. EU membership would place Iceland within a common policy framework in which legal control, market access and political negotiating power are closely connected.

Even with temporary arrangements or special solutions, the fundamental position would change: Iceland would no longer stand outside the union when the external boundaries of fisheries policy were determined.

The same would apply, in different ways, to agriculture, energy, foreign policy, foreign trade and monetary policy. Iceland’s geography and size make flexibility particularly important, Baudenbacher argues.

He writes that the flexibility of the Icelandic króna was an important factor in making the country’s economic recovery after the financial crisis possible.