EU Enlargement Commissioner Stefan Fuele express his comment on Iceland EU status after an inaugural meeting in Brussels marking the start of talks. He is very much concerned by the current lack of broad public support for European Union membership in Iceland.
Addressing the news conference alongside Icelandic Foreign Minister Oessur Skarphedinsson, Fuele said that this shows that there’s a need for more objective information about the EU and its policies. Fuele called on Reykjavik to win back the changing public opinion at home that has turned against the EU amid differences over Iceland’s whale hunting and a bank collapse that hit British and Dutch investors.
According to Fuele the decision (to join the EU) should be based on facts and figures and not on myth and fears. This is a job first and mostly for the Icelandic government. Fuele plans to visit the north Atlantic island of 300,000 people in September. It is necessary to have strong public support as the decision to join the EU will ultimately go to a referendum. Negotiations opened just one year after Iceland submitted its application in July 2009 in the wake of a financial crisis that decimated its banking sector and fuelled initial public support to join the EU family’s economic security.
Reykjavik has said it hoped to wrap up talks by the end of this year and join by 2012, making it the 29th EU member after Croatia joins the club. The two sides also face difficult talks on Iceland’s defence of its whaling tradition, a practice banned in the EU.
