Iceland does not want to join EU

The clue is in the bloodline: Viking - Mail Online - Euroseptic: Mary Ellen Synon in Brussels

Today the European Commission is due to recommend that the EU starts membership talks with Iceland. If I cared about the welfare of the eurocrats who are going to get involved in the negotiations -- and I don't -- I'd warn them them to strap on some Kevlar before going into the talks. They are about to 'negotiate' with a nation like no other.

Unlike other small countries, Iceland is not some shivering spaniel puppy longing to be allowed into the EU. The majority of the people of Iceland -- one of the most physically and mentally tough nations on earth -- do not want to join. They have the courage to say that they and their rich fishing grounds and their independence do not need the European Commission and the European Council and all the rest of the EU institutions telling them how to run their country.

The ruling social democrat party is a pro-EU party -- indeed, it is the only pro-EU party in Iceland -- but repeated opinion polls have shown it does not represent the will of the people on the question of Europe.

Then of course there is the question of the way two big, rich EU countries, Britain and the Netherlands, are attempting to bully the Icelandic people over the failure of the Icelandic banks Kaupthing and Landsbanki, known as the Icesave dispute. The shortfall for meeting depositors claims' in Britain and the Netherlands is £3.5bn, and the British and Dutch governments want the Icelanders to pay it.

Yet there are hardly more than 310,000 people in Iceland, babies and children included, and they don't have that kind of money. More, it is hard to see that there is any case, legal or moral, to force the plain people of Iceland to pay for the greed of depositors -- the two banks were offering above-market rates -- in other countries.

But Britain and the Netherlands are trying to force the Icelandic people to pay anyway. So intense has been the bullying that the two big countries have even blocked the IMF from helping Iceland recover from its spectacular crash at the start of the global crisis until it agrees to pay the Icesave billions.

The Icelanders have started the fightback. There will be a referendum on March 6th in which the people will decide whether they will accept responsibility for the banks' liabilities. The Reykjavik government (which consistently has shown itself unworthy of its own courageous people) have struck a crippling deal with the British and the Dutch; but the latest poll shows the people will reject it in the referendum by almost two to one. The same poll shows that the people, by 61 percent to less than 30 percent, think their president was right to take the final decision on such an important issue away from the government and give it directly to the people to decide.

I've been in touch today with Hjortur J. Gudmundsson, director of the Icelandic free market think tank, Civis, about all this. He tells me, 'The government has been trying to get a new and better deal with the British and the Dutch to avoid the referendum since it fears it could mean it will have to resign if it looses it. Whether they will get a better deal remains to be seen but the time before the referendum is of course running out.'

'Since the president's decision, this issue has of course gained much more attention outside Iceland. Which is great -- the British and the Dutch governments obviously don't want this issue to get much attention. They don't want the dispute to be taken to the courts, as Iceland has repeatedly asked for. They quite simply know they would lose the case, and they don't want this to drag along more.'

'What makes this a bit more interesting is that we are now dealing with a temporary government in the Netherlands' -- the Dutch government must face an election within weeks -- 'and probably an outgoing British government.'

'In any case we are determined to win this war. We are not going to be bullied. That is simply against our nature. The atmosphere in Iceland since the autumn of 2008 regarding the Icesave dispute has been similar to a war time atmosphere, I imagine. However, we have from the beginning never seen the British or the Dutch people as our opponents, but only their governments. As we see it, the people of those two countries are just like us -- victims of reckless bankers and incompetent politicians.'

Already the Icelanders have shown that the British and Dutch attempt to use the IMF as a weapon against them has failed, as has the threat by the two governments to block any negotiations by Iceland to join the EU: 'There are indications that we don't need further loans from the IMF -- and the IMF is extremely unpopular in Iceland -- and the vast majority of Icelanders don't want to join the EU anyway. These threats have worked somewhat on the government, but not so much on the public.'

Or, it seems, on the businessmen of Iceland. On February 15th there was an opinion poll taken among the leaders of Icelandic companies about their attitude towards EU membership. Sixty percent of them now think the Icelandic economy is better placed outside the EU than on the inside. Just 31 percent think the interests of the economy would be better secured if Iceland were a member of the EU.

You just have to love these people.