EU direct effect rules would weaken Icelandic powers, lawyer argues

In an opinion article published by Morgunblaðið, lawyer Tryggvi Axelsson argues that Iceland’s accession to the European Union would introduce new legislative rules and weaken the country’s legislative and judicial powers.

Writing ahead of a referendum on negotiations over EU membership, Axelsson says there has been insufficient explanation of how the EU’s governing system is structured and how rules are prepared, adopted and applied.

Under international law, a rule or obligation agreed between states generally applies only between the states that have accepted it. For it to affect domestic law and the public, the relevant state must normally pass legislation, he writes.

EU membership would require Iceland to accept new legislative rules, the most important of which would be the EU principle of direct effect. Since the adoption of the Lisbon Treaty in 2007, the EU has increasingly used this principle in legislation, according to Axelsson.

The principle automatically applies to all EU regulations, which he says have the same legal status as laws in Iceland. It can also apply to directives when certain conditions established in rulings by the European Court of Justice are met.

Axelsson says the European Commission and current EU member states consider the main advantage of direct effect to be that European laws adopted under the principle take effect on the day they are published, without being considered by the national parliaments of member states.

He identifies the loss of national independence as the main disadvantage. The principle also prevents delays caused by EU rules being processed by member states’ national parliaments, he writes.

Some 1,200 legislative measures, referred to as regulations, were adopted in 2025. When the European Economic Area agreement took effect in 1995, most legislative measures were not based on the direct effect principle described in the article.

Axelsson says Icelandic residents who are unfamiliar with the EU’s governing system should understand how direct effect would work in practice. If Iceland joined the EU, he argues, the Constitution of Iceland would have to be amended to allow the resulting changes.

Axelsson is a lawyer with an MBA and a former director of the Icelandic Consumer Agency.