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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

#471

Post by troupo »

1718627440 wrote: post #468
troupo wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

But they are not IN the EU, and the UK doing a Brexit (aka. leaving the EU) does not make them incapable of having the same arrangement as Norway and Switzerland.

They are not in the EU but very deeply integrated with the EU, its laws and regulations, and even finance the EU.

That's the point of my comment. They are not strictly "without".

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

#472

Post by snowpid »

broken-kebab wrote: post #202
Supermancho wrote: post #191

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Moving the goalpost out to "automatic military response" is not compelling.

I literally started the discussion from the point that "the mutual assistance clause doesn't oblige member states to support each other with military force" - quoting from the comment just 2 levels above. So which goalpost is being moved here?

I started the discussion with the EU is infact a military alliance. You shifted the goal post by your counter argument.

Talking about EU politics you have to use non English sources sometimes. Why not auto translate them?

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

#473

Post by general1465 »

surgical_fire wrote: post #165
general1465 wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The presence of EU across the sea is making their exporters to comply, same goes for UK. Does not matter if you are a member or not. You can either comply with the roles or not export to EU.

This is a great example of how people comment very confidently on shit they know nothing about. Iceland complies with EU because it belongs to the EEA. It has nothing to do with "precence of EU across the sea". UK doesn't have to comply with th EU. It has to if it t wants to be able to export stuff there.

Your comment is a great example of getting triggered and then agreeing with everything what I have written.

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

#474

Post by simonra »

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.…

Using Denmark as an example of somewhere doing well because they didn't adapt the euro would be wrong though. They pegged the Danish krone to the euro decades ago, and have as far as I know had to follow the European central banks interest rates fairly closely as a consequence.

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

#475

Post by muyuu »

pas wrote: post #428
muyuu wrote: post #426

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 de facto inside. Hence the argument to have a vote at least. 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.)

their voting power would be essentially zero and the policy opt-ins very significant

no doubt in my mind I'd vote no in their place

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

#476

Post by mike_hearn »

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…

The whole point of leaving the Euro would have been so the government could continue to pay its civil servants and other bills by printing the money. It would also have used printed Drachma to buy Euros and use those to repay its debts.

Reintroducing the Drachma was a "solution" to the political problem of cutting spending by creating hyperinflation, not anything else. So it makes no sense to default and keep using the Euro. The reason for defaulting is because you don't have enough euros....

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

#477

Post by mike_hearn »

inigyou wrote: post #414
rdm_blackhole wrote: post #402

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree that interests rates between trading partners have to somewhat match but the issue here within Europe is that Germany is so big that by default what they say goes. So, if you have Estonia that is in a slump and needs a boost, it can go to the ECB and say, look we need to lower the interest rates but if Germany is happy with the current rates, the likelihood that Estonia gets its way is basically nil. Right no…

Why can't Greece just default on its debt? When you can't paper over your insolvency with currency devaluation, you can still be insolvent but you have to deal with it in more overt ways.

They could but then nobody would lend them more euros. If you default in a situation of structural deficit where you can't print more money, then the only alternative is instant spending cuts to balance the budget.

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

#478

Post by mike_hearn »

runarberg wrote: post #206
gizajob wrote: post #157

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If you join the EU you will lose control of your fisheries and have worse management policies pushed on you. Fantasy to think it will be any other way.

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…

The problem is enforcement. The EU system doesn't work because it's not properly enforced. Spanish fishing fleets would regularly fish in British waters and Britain wasn't able to stop them, despite the rules.

This is a general pattern. The EU has many rules that are supposed to be enforced by its own institutions. But the attitude is very much to decide what rules to enforce based on ideological and political concerns, so the laws are largely meaningless.

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

#479

Post by surgical_fire »

solidr53 wrote: post #462
surgical_fire wrote: post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Iceland is in EEA. EEA is already EU-lite, where they have to comply with plenty of EU regulations, don't get a vote on those regulations, but get some exemptions (such as their fishing thing). Other two countries in EEA are Norway and Liechtenstein.

The fishing thing is almost 40% of our export. We cannot even keep up with the EU-lite regulations today. But anyways, the vote is most certainly, but close, no.

I'm not saying that Iceland should join the EU. Nor that it shouldn't. I don't live in Iceland.

I was explaining to the commenter above me that Iceland already has to comply to EU regulations, because he seemed unaware of that.

Unsurprisingly, every thread on HN that mention EU seems to attract all sorts of people that have absolutely no idea of what the hell they are talking about.

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

#480

Post by surgical_fire »

general1465 wrote: post #473
surgical_fire wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is a great example of how people comment very confidently on shit they know nothing about. Iceland complies with EU because it belongs to the EEA. It has nothing to do with "precence of EU across the sea". UK doesn't have to comply with th EU. It has to if it t wants to be able to export stuff there.

Your comment is a great example of getting triggered and then agreeing with everything what I have written.

Except, no.

Iceland has to comply with EU because it is in the EEA. The situation of Iceland is completely different than the situation of the UK.

The UK has to comply with the EU as much as Nicaragua, New Zealand, Namibia, etc.

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