Earlier quoted context omitted.
What agreement? To join the EU you must change a lot of internal structures in your own government first, a lor of regulations must be changed to align with EU versions, laws have to be changed, even basics, like drivers licences and other documents. Why spend millions if not billions on all that, impose laws that are maybe bad for normal people, and then figure out that people don't actually want to join the EU?
You would hold the confirmatory vote before you do all of that. You'd go to the EU, agree what joining looks like, and before doing any of the actual implementation you hold the vote
Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
421–430 of 499 posts
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#422Earlier quoted context omitted.
I am as pro-EU as it gets, and I really would prefer if it worked as a true parliament. Instead of commissioners chosen by national governments and a head commissioner, a premier minister chosen by the parliament, and a commission that would only have the power to approve of veto laws that come from the parliament. Hell, the parliament should even have the power to override vetoes. The way the EU is composed right no…
If you’re pro-EU then how has this circumstance come about, except by very deliberate design?
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#423Earlier quoted context omitted.
Speaking of Switzerland - no it absolutely is not. Is far from being fully integrated into EU. You have to pay customs on shipments, which can be delayed for weeks on borders. You need to apply for the residence permit and you can lose it for trivially sounding reasons. - E.g. lying on the application which could mean " you mentioned in the application you wull look for job but lied and went to learn the language ins…
> You have to pay customs on shipments, which can be delayed for weeks on borders. See here: https://www.efta-studies.org/sectoral-access-to-the-single-m... > You need to apply for the residence permit and you can lose it for trivially sounding reasons. - E.g. lying on the application "Trivially sounding reasons".... lying on the application. Lol. ---- Yes, I hyperbolized a little in my comment. But I'm tired of peop…
Except that that wasn't the discussion at all.
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#424Earlier quoted context omitted.
Which means in the next bidding round the fishermen would bid somewhere between the double they were charged, and could still apparently have a working businesses with, and what the middleman bid. All it means is that they were expecting too large profit margins and someone called their bluff.
Has this been tried? It's been tried with housing (that's the current housing system).
15 year contracts when large investments are required. Otherwise 5-10 years.
And you get a ”quota” for a guaranteed traffic to run for that period based on the requirements in the contract.
Just took the same idea and applied to fishing, to prevent the ”legacies” from monopolizing it while giving the public the income of their shared resources.
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#425The EU needs to develop an associate option for close allies unwilling to become full members. Canada, Iceland, and others are very closely aligned with the EU in many respects and all could benefit from closer relationships. Ask a Canadian if they'd favour joining the EU and they'd probably be all for it, until you start talking about what that means. Fully joining the EU involves giving up a lot of sovereignty to a…
We already have associate options - not joining Schengen, not adopting Euro. Anything more than that results in a horrible mess of legal agreements. Imagine that suddenly each US state gets more sovereignty and they just... make different decisions. California adopts Spanish as second official language, New York adopts metric system, Alabama permits sister/brother marriages, Utah declares Mormonism as official religi…
CA would have to amend their constitution, but could pick a second language.
NY already prefers metric
AL could probably allow those marriages, they're not big on allowing marriages though.
UT would be stopped by the establishment clause.
https://law.justia.com/constitution/california/article-iii/s...
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#426These 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…
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#427Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#428These 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…
I think it would be a grave mistake for them to join. They would lose all bargaining power right away and they'd be joining a very dysfunctional EU.
They are already paying the price for not being de jure members. (Currency exchange costs, rate hedging is also costly, and they don't benefit from EU unified foreign policy - the current Trump scare for Greenland could come for them too - hence the argument to join.)
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#429Earlier quoted context omitted.
Icelandic ex-fisherman here: Iceland‘s fisheries are controlled by what we call quota-kings. They are extremely rich owners of fishing quota (similar to USA’s oil barons) who are increasingly anti-social and obviously very unpopular among Iceland’s general public. Iceland’s fishing system is kind of feudal in nature. People are allowed buy and trade and even rent fishing quotas. This means that the quota has accumula…
Shared usage of a limited resource is a hard problem to solve. Given the current system maybe the most honest one would be if the state ”owns” all the quota and then let fishermen bid for fishing rights. But I have a feeling that will quickly become politicized with strange carve outs benefiting a few.
Without trawlers shoveling up entire populations and destroying the ecosystem around it, a lot of these issues will solve them selves.
Re: Iceland votes on whether to restart talks on joining EU
#430Earlier quoted context omitted.
> You have to pay customs on shipments, which can be delayed for weeks on borders. See here: https://www.efta-studies.org/sectoral-access-to-the-single-m... > You need to apply for the residence permit and you can lose it for trivially sounding reasons. - E.g. lying on the application "Trivially sounding reasons".... lying on the application. Lol. ---- Yes, I hyperbolized a little in my comment. But I'm tired of peop…
> that Norway and Switzerland are somehow completely separate from the EU. Except that that wasn't the discussion at all.
Quote: "I feel the UK were wrong to leave but Norway and Switzerland have a fantastic overall quality of life without and I'm not sure the benefits of membership unless you are financially poor country."
They are not "without". They are integrated through and through.