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Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

bbc.com

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Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#321

Post by ExoticPearTree »

bluegatty wrote: post #185
ngruhn wrote: post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now I like those benefits: The shared currency, easy travel, they killed roaming fees! Also they're the only ones seriously taking on big tech. They made Apple ditch their dumb ass lightning cable.

'roaming fees' :) That's my point: that's the most marginal thing imaginable, it's borderline tabloid populism - even though yes, admittedly over a lot of issues, it' beneficial obviously. The 'common market' is pretty valuable and it's what the focus should be. Literally nobody is against that - it's what everyone agrees on. As far as travel and roaming fees - you don't need a centralized government for any of that.…

> The 'common market' is pretty valuable and it's what the focus should be.

There is no such thing. Every country still has its own rules. You can’t even have the same Netflix across the EU, it is still fragmented at country level.

I could go on, but there is no single market.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#322

Post by mytailorisrich »

The Icelandic people are fortunate to have this discussion and debate now because, in 2026 and seeing what the EU is, it is very clear what the choice is: being an independent country or being a 'state' of a federal EU.

It is for them only to decide and they have clarity so they can make an informed decision.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#323

Post by 317070 »

bluebarbet wrote: post #286
317070 wrote: post #133

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look into who they were the debtor to. Turns out that a lot of German banks would have needed to scrap debt from their books.

So a Greek default would have created an EU political crisis. Greece would have been in the doghouse. Perhaps the other members would have suspended its structural funds, or even voting rights. Seems impossible it would have been thrown out of the EU, there's not even an obvious way to do that. All very unpleasant, but then there was clearly an upside for Greece. It just seems interesting that the scenario was never…

It was though? I remember a default being a real option in the media.

But in the end, it was clear that unlike in Iceland, bankruptcies were not considerable, and so a bailout was going to happen. The only question was how the bailout would be structured.

Yanis Varoufakis made his name back then by going against the grain and proposing a hairsplit, but instead an approach was chosen where Greece never really defaulted, but its population was harshly punished for it.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#324

Post by [deleted] »

ekidd wrote: post #7

> The No campaign fears losing control over Iceland's prized fishing grounds under the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and has vowed never to share the country's waters with anyone. Brussels has indicated Iceland could earn some kind of exemption, but it is considered potentially the biggest obstacle to any agreement. As noted in the article, Iceland's fishing industry makes up something like 40% of their exports. Which…

[deleted]

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#325

Post by riffraff »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #91
ekidd wrote: post #7

> The No campaign fears losing control over Iceland's prized fishing grounds under the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and has vowed never to share the country's waters with anyone. Brussels has indicated Iceland could earn some kind of exemption, but it is considered potentially the biggest obstacle to any agreement. As noted in the article, Iceland's fishing industry makes up something like 40% of their exports. Which…

One of the factors leading them to reconsider EU membership is monetary policy. The Icelandic króna is a very small currency that fluctuates considerably. Switching to the euro would protect them from exchange rate risks with their main trading partner. One solution for Iceland would be to join the eurozone without becoming a member of the EU, as Kosovo and Montenegro have done. However, this would only be desirable…

Kosovo and Montenegro adooted the Euro unilaterally, but various micro countries use the Euro through special treaties (Monaco, San Marino, Vatican etc). Iceland is 10x larger but this in principle possible.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#326

Post by riffraff »

eloisant wrote: post #256
embedding-shape wrote: post #144

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Mayotte can use the euro even though the island is on the brink of collapse Isn't Mayotte part of France and been for quite some time? I'd guess they switched to the Euro together with France and all the other French territories, but maybe I'm wrong?

Yes, Mayotte is very much part of France. Monaco, Vatican and San Marino are however sovereign micro-states that switched to the euros because they already had a monetary agreement with France or Italy.

Also Andorra, which has an agreement since 2006 to mint their own Euros.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#327

Post by ExoticPearTree »

somenameforme wrote: post #218
andrepd wrote: post #160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A maneauvor whereupon a foreign power allows as many people into a small enclave as already live there (literally 60k into a territory of 80k) cannot be called anything other than "invasion". When did Mexico conspire to help 60k people breach into Texas? Let me know and we can have that conversation, maybe I missed it. As a side-note it was the "dangerous communist leftist" Sanchez which swiftly took control of the s…

The US situation is more nuanced than you're framing it as. Even in Mexico there's largely negative sentiment against illegal immigration, as they also suffer from it with the caravans composed primarily of large numbers of young unattached males from a mish mash of places in South America pass through Mexico. They don't tend to leave happiness in their wake. The majority of Mexicans (55%) want them forcibly deported…

So the question becomes, since Mexico is really really huge, why doesn’t the Mexican governemt do anything about these caravans? Not to mention that Mexico is pretty narrow at its southern end.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#328

Post by rdm_blackhole »

mcintyre1994 wrote: post #289
bluegatty wrote: post #108

These debates are hard to watch. 'Loss of sovereignty' for some reason is perfectly fine for Iceland, Switzerland and Norway, but not UK or others wanting to leave. 'Fisheries' was a small but founding and perennial concern before and during Brexit but they were labelled 'ugly nationalists'. The EU has benefits obviously but it's been failing Europe in critical ways for about 20 yeas now, and the crazy paradox is tha…

> but not UK or others wanting to leave. I don't think there are any others wanting to leave after Brexit! Politicians like Le Pen don't campaign to leave any more.

The AFD is openly campaigning on it and they are currently the most popular parti in Germany.

The French RN is not openly campaigning on leaving anymore since its pretty scary to the voters but the intention of Le Pen is to hold a referendum to ask the French people to recognize the supreme rule of French law above EU law which would act as a soft exit since that means that France would no longer be bound by directives and other regulations which it doesnt agree with.

The other major parti France unbowed is even more direct and wants to set "fire" to some of the debt which would most likely trigger a Euro/Eu crisis and force either the ECB to bail out France or force France out of the Euro.

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#329

Post by riffraff »

bluebarbet wrote: post #121
Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of the factors leading them to reconsider EU membership is monetary policy. The Icelandic króna is a very small currency that fluctuates considerably. Switching to the euro would protect them from exchange rate risks with their main trading partner. One solution for Iceland would be to join the eurozone without becoming a member of the EU, as Kosovo and Montenegro have done. However, this would only be desirable…

During the 2010 debt crisis there was much talk of profligate Greece being "thrown out" of the euro zone. In this dark scenario Greek civil servants would get their pay rises in worthless drachma, but Greek homeowners would be left with unpayable euro mortgages. But nobody ever talked about the Montenegro option (similar to Ecuador and USD). I never understood this. What was stopping Greece from defaulting and keepin…

> Greek homeowners would be left with unpayable euro mortgages

Just fyi, Hungary had a ton of homeowners with loans in EUR and CHF and when the HUF collapsed the rates became untenable and the government just said "eh, fuck the banks, let's keep the previous exchange rate". The banks survived too.

It's a hard political decision but not an impossible one.

(Disclosure: I deeply disliked that government for other reasons and didn't have a loan, it was just interesting to see populism in action without obvious downsides materializing)

Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU

#330

Post by bbarn »

Beretta_Vexee wrote: post #91
ekidd wrote: post #7

> The No campaign fears losing control over Iceland's prized fishing grounds under the EU's Common Fisheries Policy and has vowed never to share the country's waters with anyone. Brussels has indicated Iceland could earn some kind of exemption, but it is considered potentially the biggest obstacle to any agreement. As noted in the article, Iceland's fishing industry makes up something like 40% of their exports. Which…

One of the factors leading them to reconsider EU membership is monetary policy. The Icelandic króna is a very small currency that fluctuates considerably. Switching to the euro would protect them from exchange rate risks with their main trading partner. One solution for Iceland would be to join the eurozone without becoming a member of the EU, as Kosovo and Montenegro have done. However, this would only be desirable…

Not sure how it would affect home mortgages but the majority of icelanders are on mortgage plans that the principal remaining rises with inflation(I forget the name, I left a few years ago) - and will never likely pay them off.
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