@@johannagustsson1533 I'm quite convinced they meant the workforce. deducting children, SAHMs and the elderly, usually only about half the entire population is in employment, so that would check out
The total population of Iceland is about 320 thousand people. That's less than twice the population of my own home city in Portugal, a country that is both small and with a small population with cities that are small by world's standards.
They are also part of the EEA. Meaning they must abide by several EU regulations and pay membership fees (less than EU members of course, but still substantially) - but have no influence or say in EU issues. The only thing keeping Iceland out of the EU is fears over the fishing sector.
Its a few hundred thousand souls who are mostly integrated in the market and Schengen rules anyway. And as both last world wars show, in case of conflict they would not have much of a choice anyways.
If you ever do videos on Iceland again, i'm here telling you that Icelanders go by their first names, always. You calling her "Frostadóttir" doesn't make any sense when it comes to Iceland, we don't go by last names as they are just an indicator of who our father is, it is not rude to call her by her first name. Edit: Did not foresee the shitstorm a simple clarification would cause. Everyone do as you please, i'm not trying to cause offense nor saying that anyone else is causing offense by not addressing Icelanders in the right way. It was just a FYI for the channel.
@@dabi2k Their names are Icelandic though. You don't refer to Xi Jinping as Mr. Jinping do you, because you know Xi is the family name and can adjust how you refer to him as appropriate. Not hard
Just to add to the euro discussion. Many large companies in iceland use the euro for their finances, but those same companies lobby heavily to make sure that the rest of the country does not use the euro. By doing this they can benefit from crashing the krona, making labor cost low, making loans for them cheap (but very expensive for others) and also can use the opportunity to buy up real-estate.
@@carlossaraiva8213 Especially because accountability just becomes so diffused. It's not like any one person decides it to be that way. It's just accumulated over time, and resting at the border between what's legal and what's unethical.
its a very niche industry, only employing 5% of the pops and its owners are the richest of the country, of course they wont want to open the fisihing zones because they will lose their monopoly. the fishing magnates are fearmongering the citizens, but its not 1779 anymore world is global and fish is not the one and only food source of the country.
As a pro-EU Scandinavian I would love to see Iceland join the Union. But only if the Icelandic people want to. A majority in favour of joining for several years before joining. Opt-out for the fisheries sounds reasonable, and the EU needs to reform the fisheries anyway to stop over-fishing. Same for Norway.
also probably no Euro adoption seems reasonable. They are geographically too far away from the common market for it to make sense, and the Euro would just hold them back by not allowing them to have their own monetary policy.
Hi, can you just tell me why you are in favour of giving away your sovranity to a distant, corrupt, obscure entity that does literally nothing for citizens interests?
@@buddy1155 as they said in the video, their economy is in large part based on their fishing. And it's already not going too well now. Having to share it with so many other countries, would only make it worse surely?
A project of peace and cooperation as strong as the EU, is the major historic conquest in the history of Europe, the most conflictuous continent on earth untill the EU was born.
@@predabot__6778 they probably do they go waaaay back. China, Russian Horses, the huns, the middle east, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, India, Japanese unification. I'm pretty damn sure Asia has waaay more. I mean by mere math Asia is many times larger than Europe, also has probably older documentation too.
Can we talk about how funny it is that on the Inflation graph at 4:48 they had to cut down Turkeys line so it can be shown? In reality their line would be at least twice as long which goes to show how utterly fried their economy is
Way to exaggerated: it is not fried! It's is marinated in butter and Mediterranean herbs, then made to swim in hot olive oil. Then it is dipped in sugar water and shoved down the throat of Turkish people. In a loving way ... of course. Blessed be the visionary, democratically elected 😉, leader of Turkiye. May he reign for all time!
@@tomsriver2838 Well yeah but being half-alive isn't exactly "good". I don't think any regular person in Turkey is benefiting from their life savings losing 50%+ of their value in a year.
I want to Progressive Party is one of the most conservative parties in Iceland, and the oldest. The name probably made more sense when they started, 100 years ago.
They advocated for more tractor imports for farmers to make them more efficient... back then it was progress... Now they just want toll booths on the roads
Same in Norway (except they are not old and used to have an even sillier name), we also have a center right party called "Left" and the "Center party", who, eh, is single issue focused on the periphery.
The majority of the nation is against joining the EU. Culturally, it is unlikely that it will join the EU. When polling is done in the Iceland, it is often heavily leaning towards college educated people, from people in office jobs. When actual elections are held, the results very often swing in the opposite direction than what the polls had indicated, that is because the working class is to busy to answer questionnaires.
Countries with small economies which have their own independent currencies find that it' very costly protecting their currencies against speculators making a run on their currencies in the foreign exchange market. The flipside is that they lose monitory control and are left with only fiscal policy.
As a heavily export driven economy it is likely against Iceland's interest to join the Eurozone. In fact I would argue it was against everyone's interest except the Netherlands and Germany, given the massive structural unemployment it created in Spain and Italy.
While I would be extremely happy to welcome our Icelandic friends into the fold, I must add that: - a 51% versus 49% referendum is undesirable. Ideally they should aim for at least a 65% versus 35% to make sure a REAL majority of Icelanders is on board. - Icelandic politics has some seriously shady corners. Most politicians openly lobby with multinationals, often to obtain results that are actually detrimental for common Icelanders. This could lead to open frictions with the EU. - Fisheries and immigration risk becoming two devastating time bombs. As for the fisheries, Iceland is essentially used to do as it pleases and that won't be possible. Immigration, in particular, is already endangering the Icelandic language, with most people currently employed in the tourism sector unable to utter a single word in Icelandic. With a population so small, the risk is great.
Island did it the right way by slowing signing to EU major prerequisites. All Nordic countries should join cause historically they have always been part of Europe in one way or another.
The UK being out of the EU probably makes the fishing negotiations easier, as they would probably have been the main threat to Icelandic fisheries within the EU and were even responsible for a couple of invasions of Icelandic fisheries known as the "cod wars". It would also be funny to see the UK surrounded in all four cardinal directions by EU member states if Iceland joined.
Agreed on the fact that this would help with negotiations. Many of those "EU vessels" would have long way to go. So at most Irish and some Scandinavian would make the trip. Previously with UK - they would "love" to have their hands on Iceland fisheries. Though I agree with some comments that do say that EU needs to reform fisheries anyway. I think that Iceland needs to start negotiations first - arrive at some plan of joining - then have referendum and then work out the details. So that people don't have to vote on completely nebulous ideas.
I’m from Iceland. For years, the businesses and conservative party have completely fear mongered the EU, suggesting the union would destroy Iceland’s fishing waters. While they completely monopolize every resource on our Very isolated island. Always rubbed me the wrong way.
The same thing will happen under the EU, you're just trading one monopolizer for another. Your waters won't be yours anymore and they will heavily restrict your way of life. That's one reason why the UK left the EU.
Also with Britain out of the EU the main problematic child for iceland is no longer a concern, at this point I think we would all benefit if we worked together to get the most out of iceland resources and to improve the country and the union as a whole.
Lots of names are patronymic, doesn't mean we don't use them. No one calls Mohammad Bin Salman simply Mohammad, or Osama Bin Laden simply Osama, if anything, more people call them Bin Salman and Bin Laden respectively.
@@NK-vd8xiReferring to someone by just their father's name is weird - it's similar to calling someone 'Jesse's dad'. That's just not how you address someone in a (semi)formal setting. Boris Johnson has a last name that he shares with his family. His kids are named Johnson, his dad was. In Iceland, his kids would have the patronym Borisson/Borisdaughter. There is no sense of a shared name.
@@AdanSolas not traditionally, they've formalised their name to BinLaden now but it literally means Son of Laden. Almost all Arabic names with Bin/Ibn (=Son) are patronyms as opposed to formalised surnames. English names worked the same, Johnson, Jackson, Thomson etc
@@ifer1280 no, it's not weird, it's actually the norm in many parts of the world and was the norm in English too, which is why we have the name Johnson to begin with in the first place.
The reality, oddly enough, is that Iceland is MORE integrated into the EU than the UK ever was throughout its membership, even though Iceland has never been a member… Integrating Iceland would not be a problem for the EU. Fisheries would be the only sticking point. Mind you, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy would be vastly improved by adopting Iceland’s sensible and sustainable approach.
Iceland shouldn't under any circumstance give away their fishing waters and it seems highly unlikely that the EU would give them a concession to stay out of the common fisheries policy.
Stop using vikings as a name whenever you get the chance, please :) that was an occupation of a small part of the population over a thousand years ago. You are probably just as much related as any of us are, statistically speaking. Vikings were horrible people. I don't go around calling Americans slave-owners for example 😅
Why do you do that? Vikings were evil people according to the left and the icelandic people would have to agree to multiple thousands islamic immigrants a year or be fined. is that a good and welcomming think for your ''viking'' brotehrs and sisters? xDD
Being in the EU and on the Euro would probably be beneficial in long term. The fishing issue is not trivial though. It’s likely not just jobs but the cultural link to fishing that makes it such a tough issue
The Euro currency has essentially never benefited anyone. The lack of currency control lead to structural unemployment in much of the Eurozone outside Germany and the Netherlands.
@@XandateOfHeaven I'd disagree with that. Countries only have an issue if they are fiscally irresponsible such as Greece was. Countries such as Ireland have definitely benefited from membership. The biggest advantage is the ease to which it makes it for business/consumers to operate within the Euro zone.
@@keiththoma2559 It's not about fiscal irresponsibility, it's that poor countries with worse infrastructure and a less educated population can't compete with exports from rich countries if they can't make their exports cheaper by devaluing their currency. Greece, Spain and Italy would have had to overspend for their infrastructure to catch up to Germany and the Netherlands. This issue is too widespread to be attributed to individual responsibility. The reason Spain and Greece have structural unemployment and Poland doesn't is currency control. Blaming national governments for the systemic failure of the Euro currency is politically motivated by saving face on the failed Euro experiment.
@@XandateOfHeaven It 100% is around fiscal irresponsibility and bad governance. Greece had crazy laws such as license and resections that limited number of workers in sectors etc such as truck drivers.
@keiththoma2559 That's over regulation not fiscal irresponsibility, but that's another thing the EU doesn't help with by adding an additional layer of government regulations on top of local, subnational and national. Economies can't have 20% unemployment without some sort of currency structural issue. It just isn't natural.
Fishery used to be the largest export of Iceland, and so they were extremely sensitive to being able to fish their own fish and not share their fishing quotas with the EU. This is historically what has kept both Iceland and Norway out of the EU (Norway also being protective of their oil). More recently tourism in Iceland has grown to be twice the size of fishery and is still growing, while metal exports have gotten to about the same size and is growing fast too, while fishery is growing slower. So things are changing. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
As a Norwegian I have never heard anyone in Norway be concerned for our oil in discussion of joining the EU. Agriculture was the biggest issue. If you live as a farmer in the Arctic and have to grow crops in between rocky mountains, there's no way of competing with continental farmers with completely different conditions for production, so it would mean an effective end to Norwegian agriculture beyond milk, potato and sheep.
@@StormCrownSrstill, Iceland and Norway should push for a reform of the EU fisheries. If Iceland has more fish than it can fish, that is great and should be used to keep fish stocks stable.
@@sciencefliestothemoon2305 no-one has more fish than they can fish. that's not how fisheries work. there's no-where on the seven seas where we're not over-fishing right now.
All the arguments I hear are opportunistic ones. "It is currently in our benefit to join, because...". And this is not great. The EU doesn't need more countries on board that join when the going is tough, then leave again when things get better or other opportunities present themselves. Brexit was a hard breach of trust, as is the defiance of Hungary and possibly Romania. I think we should add a minimum term for joining, for example 50 years, to prevent these on-and-off-again situations. But most importantly, nations should join because they believe in the things the EU stands for, like democracy and cooperation and solidarity; not because they see it as a currently favorable transaction.
The EU does not stand for democracy. If it did then it would allow European parliament to introduce legislation instead of just veto it. The EU is an anti-democratic organization meant to circumvent democratic opposition to neo-liberal economic policy. Look at the language you use, "defiance". You aren't even pretending there is benefit to the organization.
hell freezes before any other state leaves the EU. people might say shit but support of EU is well above 80% in Hungary. one thing what politicians say and an other thing is what people believe
The Icelandic people have not been consulted on this matter yet. Just hold your horses, please. The new coalition government has not yet come up with clear common policies, and the people of Iceland are bright enough to notice if such decisions are made without their consent. This video even admits that a referendum would have to be held, and it so happens that many Icelanders deplore recent developments in Europe as a whole. Leading up to a referendum, a lot of good arguments against joining would come to the surface, even if other countries already stuck in the EU pretend that it’s the only way forward.
@@zackgravity7284 no he cant talk about that because it will be bad just signing EU energy pact 1 doubuld my power bill and i fail to sea how having 2 govs is better it cost lot more to hold out corrupt leaders like Ursula and also if you whats the news you know Germany is having a real bad time WW and PORSHE are going to USA the energy bill in EU has gone up quit a bit so industry in EU is tanking nobody with common sense will go fore that
1. Her name is Kristrún. She is Frostadóttir as her father is named Frosti. The new government has agreed to hold a referendum about what to TO DO. I expect we will know what people what people think is better for our country.
I literally don't get what the EU has to offer Iceland. They will be forced to share fishing rights and take in a quota of asylum seeking immigrants with no skills, both will cost them. It's not like they have a real export economy that would benefit from integration.
Iceland is taking in a lot of asylum seekers. The country is in the EEA (i.e. in the Single Market) and the Schengen zone and part of the Dublin agreement. It can change its rules on immigration be it outside or inside the EU. There would be no change to immigration were Iceland to join fully.
Taking in refugees is in and of itself a benefit to the world and therefore Iceland and we already do it a whole lot so their quota would probably just muck things up since we've already got a pretty solid system set up.
This is not quite correct. Iceland doesn't have a standing army, true, but it has a defense force, the country has experience with the logistics of annual NATO exercises and the small IRCU haa been deployed as part of peacekeeping missions. Yes, this is not the same as a standard military operated by other countries, but there are structures and institutional knowledge to build on.
Iceland is a paying member of NATO and has NATO bases as far as i read. So they pay NATO for their defense but don't have military personel or equipment themselves. (so basicaly the money they invest in their military security leaves the country mostly, and is not comming back much in terms of taxes, and does not pay a direct wage for any of their own citizens. What i mean is every country that has an army pays their soldiers and those soldiers thus have work and buy the things for their daily life ect from their income and so the part of the money comes back to the country by taxes and that makes the soldiers cheaper than they seem and employed.)
Infrastructure repairs across the country due to volcanic eruptions? No, just in the localised area of the periodically erupting volcano, specifically around the Blue Lagoon and associated geothermal power plant and the nearby fishing village and only amounts to building lava berms and making good road, hot water and electricity connections over the latest lava field.
EUs stance on fisheries is crazy. Demanding that Iceland gives up control of their main resource if they join the union is just bizarre. What will Icelanders do when their fishing areas are flooded with huge factory fishing vessels from across Europe?
Such a small country so dependent of one main sector would be eviscerated when abiding to the EU rule. But hey, at least the EU will be able to make it more 'multicultural'. That will surely enough help the island.
@@tpower1912 You're wrong. EU/EEA/CH citizens can stay up to 90 days in Iceland, not 60. If one secures a job (they have the exact same rights in the labor market as Icelandic citizens) or they can prove they have sufficient funds to support themselves otherwise, they can register with the appropriate authorities and, start working and stay indefinitely. Same applies to Icelandic citizens in other EU/EEA countries and CH.
@Andy-dg1pjthe best excuse is that the people don’t want it, we’ve voted on EU membership twice, the vote failed horribly twice. We aren’t pressured by our Scandinavian neighbours and after 600 years of foreign rule we won’t be ruled by Brussels. Despite your wishes us Norwegians are more than content with the status quo
@Andy-dg1pj Me as well - in fact, in order for Europe to remain relevant and sustainable, we probably have to do it - alone we are far, far weaker than the USA, Russia and China in not just Military, but Economy and culture as well. And you touch on the most important aspect of the EU, the whole reason we did it: to PREVENT a third pan-european war - World-War3 would, as always, start in Europe, but this time it could easily mean the end of all European states, or possibly the entire world. The EU is a means towards preventing that - that makes it one of the greatest human endeavours ever made, to me - almost a holy thing, in a way.
I find it somewhat admirable that there are people that support a referendum whilst also being against what is voted on. It's like "I don't support the motion but I love democracy so let's vote!"
I said Brexit should have been treated like a constitution change poll (requiring 2/3s of the vote to win here in Germany) and I still say it here. ou shouldneed overwhelming support to join or leave. No one gains by the revolving door that was UK membership.
I think Iceland and Norway will join the EU *eventually*, at some point over the next few decades. But I don't know if it will be next year or during this next government's tenure. One thing I'd say is that if they're going to hold a referendum on EU membership they should also really hold a simultaneous referendum on the Euro as well, to settle that questions too.
@@XandateOfHeaven Both Norway and Iceland (and Switzerland as well, btw) are already part of Schengen and EEA; EU citizens can live and work in them and vice versa and they dutifully accept all new EU laws and regulations. Literally the only reason not to join is inertia and fisheries, and those are both solvable and relatively transient.
I'm so glad this lady finally recorded her own version of "please subscribe" intro. It always felt so jarring when Jack's voice would jump out then return back to hers.
I think EU should leave Norway and Iceland sovereignty when it comes to fishing. Already lack of sovereignty is one of the reasons why there is a far-right increase. Such move would gain the EU more support.
Can'T contribute anything to the fishing rights as i know too little about it, but to the second part: it's mostly the *perceived* lack of soverignity that is the problem. Most governments and EU sceptical political parties in europe do something i would call shitty practice: they blame any unpopular decision and outcome of anything on the EU. And anything positive/popular on themselves. So people often have a wrong picture of what the EU actually did, and what they didn't. Media also does put fuel on those fires. One example to me is the discussion on the EU dilligence rules for companies. Media, EU sceptical parties ect made absolutely false claims and people run with it. A collegue of mine came up to us and told us "the EU now wants that in every book sold, the GPS position of every tree used has to be printed in the last pages of the books, they are gone mad in the EU!" (many newspapers where i live printed that BS) So i tried to find out what the EU actually decided. And it turned out to be not real. About trees used, they ruled that any company doing that has to verify which sort of tree, and from which piecce of land the tree was, when it was felled and processed. And to keep that data for 5 years. And as nobody checks the truth behind what they get told, especially people who are likely to vote for the current far right parties in europe, they are easily lied to and have a wrong impression about the actual sovereignity of their country, and the interferrence of the EU. Btw.: any decision the EU takes, every member country is influencing. Norway less so. They and the swiss basically are paying to be part of the market, but have no say in anything.
As a non-Icelander I really believe Iceland is better not being in the EU. They can't afford to sacrifice their fishing rights and I firmly believe free movement into their borders will do more harm than good in the long run.
Joining the EU has the potential to be absolutely disastrous for us though. We’re so small that we’d essentially get no say in matters. Especially when it comes to our fish. We quite literally fought a “war” with the British to ensure our right to kick them out of our fishing grounds! Other reasons include the fact that we don’t actually fulfill the requirements to adopt the euro and the fact that France and Germany are economically stagnating (Germany especially seems to think the year’s still 1989). Economically, adopting the EU is also mostly only beneficial during already stable times. During economic downturns you *want* your currency to reflect that fact. Otherwise, you’re completely screwed. That’s why, in 2008 we managed to bounce back much more smoothly than Greece did - they had the Euro, which remained “stable”, we had our króna. Besides that, the EU doesn’t care about us. During the 2008 crisis, the British put us on a terrorist list! Maintaining relations with other countries is definitely good, especially as we are so small, but we really can’t lose sight of the fact that we are also quite insignificant. If we give up our independence, we gain very little power in its stead. The EU makes much more sense for bigger countries like France or Germany. I also don’t really understand what people these polls talk to. Most decently educated people I personally know are very skeptical of the EU. Rant over. By the way, who the hell is Frostadóttir? I thought her name was Kristrún.
It's a great place to see, I was there in 2022 for Reykjavik half marathon and managed to see vulcano erupting, waterfalls, black beach and other picturesque landscapes. It was really impressive, there are no such views anywhere else I guess. I have one observation which might be connected to growing EU support there - there is a lot of Polish people there. I met many my fellow Polish people there, according to wikipedia Poles consitute more than 5% of Icelandic population. And we're quite pro-EU in Poland, so it might tip the scale.
The EU needs to find a way of membership where Island can maintain the important parts of their rights of fishery. Fishery is a vital part of Icelandic economy and Island can make only little concessions on that front. On the other hand the major governing and opposition parties need to agree on membership. It makes no sense to negote something that immeditately gets walked back as soon as the majorities change and a different government gets elected. EU membership is a long term plan that needs one or two decades to process in full.
We could also just keep things the way they are. Contriving a way for Iceland to join without giving up their fishing rights is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
As a surface level discussion this coverage isn't all bad. Thing is that things are pretty broken here as well as in other countries and the nepotism and base corruption is on an insane level. The housing market here is also insane and the banks that run it are the main culprits amongst others as well. Inflation is a drop in the ocean compared to the insane interest rates and our currency is a joke that the big companies here dont even use, they make they're business in euros but force the public to use the krona. I'm trying to get away from this island as soon as possible and so are many more Icelanders, i hope im not to late however and that a new financial crisis isn't just behind the corner wich means ill be stuck here drowning in debt and no prospects of increasing my salary to keep up with the interest rates. Then again what do people expect from a nation founded by Norwegian tax dodgers and viking pirates, we are when all comes down to it two faced crooks that are just extreme good at marketing and image shaping ourselves to foreigners. Btw its mostly foreign labour that holds this island together with cheap labour in the tourist industry and in the fish processing plants.
@TLDRnewsEU In Iceland you would never address someone by their patronym or matronym e.g. Frostadóttir, as that’s not her name, but only indicates who her father was. So when talking about Icelandic people always refer to them by first name or by their full name.
Usually one would use a transition from the video topic to the sponsor ad. I really don’t like, how you just kept on reading the text, as if the ad was part of the video proper. There’s worse players out there of course, but especially for a news channel strict separation of editorial content and bought-and paid for content should be paramount.
A lot of TH-cam providers are doing this kind of seamless transition to their sponsor's material now. It used to be a much-lampooned feature of American broadcasting. Newspapers may also fail to distinguish between news, press releases and advertising when it relates to their proprietors.
About adopting EUR: in contradiction to what you said in the video, Iceland actually would not(!) seek exemption from EUR. Moreover. in fact even and particularely representatives of the Independence party have propagated to adopt EUR (20 years ago), even without joining EU. They had to learn the EU would not like this. Moreover, the only point the pro-EU group Evrópuhreyfingin is advertising repeatedly IS joining the EUR, to presumingly achieve less inflation and allover lower price levels.
Iceland already is in the EFTA. It's an EU law taker but not an EU law maker. That's the big difference between partnership and membership. Living in Iceland right now, I can say I doubt EU membership would change for the better. Therefore, I strongly believe that Iceland could seek a currency union with Norway by adopting the Norwegian króna (NOK) just like Liechtenstein does with the Swiss Franc (CHF). This would stabilise the economy to a fair level 👌
There are pros and cons joining the EU. The "pro" eu parties did not want to talk about joing the EU before the elections so I think many of the voters where not voting for them to join the EU. The inflation is high but the wages have also risen alot, so to compare the Euro to the ISK is hard, tbere are so many factors
Their polling was atrocious until they stopped talking about joining the EU and adopting the Euro. That kinda talk is considered treasonous by many in Iceland.
As a full EU member state with a small population they’d have few MEP’s to influence policy in the parliament. Additionally, with QMV in the council, they’d be better off staying out- they get almost all the benefits already and keep their exclusive fishing rights.
The promise to introduce the Euro when joining the EU is linked to one important condition: as soon as the requirements are met. As the countries of Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania show, this can take many years.
... we all know these countries dont "meet" the requirements because they still don't want to implement the euro. if they wanted to they'd had the euro a long time ago.
I wonder if the EU should be reformed to a federal republic first before accepting new candidates -- even though how well fit Iceland and possible other candidates are. Politically the EU is becoming ungovernable.
The EU is sort of untenable. The Euro currency is a failed experiment that caused massive structural unemployment, and the governing system is not democratic enough. More democracy and less currency control would be difficult.
@@XandateOfHeaven Both the EU and the Euro are huge successes. Unemployment has nothing to do with the euro currency, just like the USD has nothing to do with unemployment in the mid-West states of the US.
@Jurjen. What are you talking about? The Euro is essentially entirely responsible for the unemployment crisis in Southern Europe. This is exactly what happened in the European sovereign debt crisis. You can't just gaslight everyone into pretending this didn't happen. There's actually a good case that parts of the United States should have separate currencies. For the rust belt it is more important for them economically that their exports are competitive than they are able to import at higher prices. But more significantly the inequality in productivity between US states is not as significant as the difference between EU states, at least in part because of a more integrated infrastructure policy.
@@XandateOfHeaven No, the unemployment has everything to do with competitiveness and *that* has everything to do with (labor) productivity. In short, those countries were lazy and everytime shit hits the fan, they deprecated their currency -- in effect stealing sometimes half of the people's money. Now with the Euro their politicians can't do that anymore so they have to face the real economic problems. It's a cultural thing but they'll learn -- like the Greek did in since 2008.
It's a bit easy to blame Southern Europe of "laziness" AND it's a bit silly to blame it all on the Euro. There is no easy one directional answer for complex problems guys.
I've always gone on the assumption that Iceland, Norway and Switzerland will eventually join the EU at some point, but only when the people in those countries decide to join. But in the meantime, the EU has enough countries in the east that want to join, chances are, as more countries join and make a success of it, it's going to be harder for the remaining countries on the outside to not want to join at some point, especially if the EU continues to expand.
Switzerland didn't join the UN until 2002. It is a country which values it's sovereignty. The problem is that Norway and Switzerland have bilateral agreements for free trade. There is no real benefit to joining.
in the EU we don't need another Hungary or pre-brexit UK... Iceland should NOT be considered a candidate nor granted the ability to waste our time by starting negotiations until a referendum is held and show a very high interested in serious EU integration...
Hi, for the fact that Iceland's fishery and following externalities contributes for 25% of Iceland's GDP... would you mind sharing source for it ? (I am now writing a thesis on that topic, so just wandering)
@@StormCrownSr😂 are you that dellusional? Go look at paris berlin or london and see the ghettos with your beloved workers spiraling 🎉 also have fun with 80% german/french laws on your island 🎉 democracy? 😅 watering down local opinions to zero 😅😅😅
@@oldbordergeek Currently the EU is not forcing any redistribution of refugees. And it such rules require unanimous votes of the EU Council which won't allow any change to this.
@@listenerobserver7160you are very uninformed wich is evil when you sprout nonsense. My EU country cannot stop immigrants OR send them back because of EU treaties. I hope we can leave the EU fast with their ecological fetishes. This is not what we gained indepence for hundreds of years ago!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
A candidate member nation should have bi-partisan local support. The question cannot depend on which party is in power. That is not a stable foundation for such a structural decision.
@ If you read my comment as intended, you wouldn’t have replied as such. The point stands: a solid, multi-party support is needed as well as a referendum to complete EU candidature on a sustainable basis. Not sure why you’re using my comment as a platform to call the UK and the US ‘third world countries’ either. FYI - I don’t live in either of them. You really need to chill.
One of the issues is that a lot of Icelanders think joining the EU is a magical solution to all the nation's problems. If things start getting better I can see support for joining dropping again.
If Iceland had a (convincing) referendum and would put everything behind it they could meet the basic entry conditions in 2030 or so. Enough time for entry negotiations. No exception to the Euro for new members! With their dependency on fish, some special agreements should be possible there. What during a time of global tensions is a bit problematic - Iceland doesn't even pretend they have any intention to defend itself. No military, no heavy arms for the police forces, nothing. As EUrope tries to ramp up the defence capability, that could be a price they would have to pay.
Iceland would be able to join much sooner than 2030, the security and defence policy has already been Provisionally closed by the EU and we are a founding member of NATO.
@@andriandrason1318 Membership to NATO is utterly irrelevant, though. Neither Ireland nor Austria are. I for one would welcome it if Iceland joined the EU.
@@timolynch149 It's just that not enough people here are sure, so it's likely not going to happen unless it's forced... which means that there is going to be a backlash, which isn't good for anyone.
Well, in all fairness to Iceland, even if it were to try and organize a military, the best it probably can do is a few thousand. That's with zero institutional knowledge on military structure and strategy. Zero experience, zero equipment, it'll be all from scratch. Makes little sense to invest so much into something so useless
Migrant Quotas will be introduces in 2026 If one EU country accepts migrants like Spain pretty much all countries accept them even if they don't want them The EU has many flaws and they don't start here It would be great for example for the EU to have a unified stock market
I hope that the people at Brussel realize that if they continue wanting weak boarders, then European resentment will push people to vote nationalist leaders that in turn are hostile towards the EU. I've been saying this for years, before Brexit was a thing, but still I feel like people have not gotten the message.
@@Chronically_ChiII Are you aware that the term "Fortress Europe" is a thing? One of the EU's pillars is the Schengen-agreement, but that agreement isn't just intended to make internal EU-movement easier, but to make external movement harder - much of the policies following 2015 have been regarding how to make external immigration more difficult. If you want a look at what happens when you remove EU-based fortifications of immigration, then just look at how the UK recently had race-riots ignited by the further disconnect from public wish, that their Non-EU based immigration-policy caused. Leaving the EU caused increased non-EU immigration - which frightened many people and made them angry. The EU has always been, and will remain, a limiter for non-European immigration into EU-countries. So, the issue is not that the EU is made to have weak external borders, it's just that the wish for even stronger borders have grown faster than what the EU-machinery could detect or react to in time. With that said, although I myself am NOT as scared of non-European immigration, or immigration in general, as many others (on a global scale - all countries have fears of immigrants) I do see that currently the wish of many people in the EU is to limit immigration as much as possible, and although it's not my preference, for the sake of democratic stability (to not erode belief in our core-systems, which would undermine our entire societies) I agree that the EU has to do more to decrease immigration - for the time being.
iceland is welcome to join, but i think they are better off outside the eu. There location is a long way of continental europe, so they don't have the same challenges
now imagine Iceland joining EU, so all these woke Icelanders feel even more support from their European ideological siblings to implement their "superb" ideas @@andriandrason1318
They are already members when it comes to the vast majority of things they just do not have a voice on how EU rules are made so it makes sense for them to join and get a voice in Brussels
@@StormCrownSr historically the Euro was literally one of the reasons Iceland wanted to Join the Union given the crash the Icelandic Krona experienced after the 2008 financial crisis
@@paullarne that's probably the only argument they have for maintaining the status quo considering how significant the fishing industry is for them, still will that continue to be the case? I do not know
That's the fallacious argument for every non-EU European country. The fact of the matter is they aren't, they're generally pretty successful without, and they probably wouldn't have much of a say compared to Germany and France.
In the end it comes down to money. Cultural connections haven't been enough for the better part of the last 50 years. And as a member of NATO, Iceland has no need for the defense aspects of the EU. And being a member of Schengen, there are no Visa issues. So what remains is money, the fiscal protection mechanisms.
How complicated can it be to make a law that says only small fishers are allowed to fish in a sustainable way and large fishing boats have to pay 90% taxes? That should keep big EU corporation out of the waters.
"50/50" is as far from "consensus" as mathematically possible. What you meant was that there is no current consensus regarding EU membership in Iceland.
Is Iceland part of the single market? The single market includes the 27 EU member states and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (through the European Economic Area). Switzerland has partial access to the single market (via bilateral agreements). Why did the UK lose the Cod Wars? The cod wars were about fishing rights in what at the time were disputed waters but that became recognised as Icelandic. The UK lost because international law states that Icelandic waters were up to 200 miles from the coast where previously the UK refused to recognise more than 12 miles.
Iceland didn't join after it's economy being crushed by the world financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. I don't think they will join now. Northern countries got that very CLEAR tendency to not want to be in the EU. UK never EVER joined the Shengen area or the Eurozone, and eventually it left the EU completely. Iceland never EVER joined the EU in the first place. Norway never EVER joined the EU in the first place. Sweden never EVER joined the Eurozone, even if THAT'S one of the MAIN requirements for EVERY SINGLE EU member. Denmark never EVER joined the Eurozone. Netherlands got a clear tendency to rebel against the EU more and more and go with the Nexit. Wilders is getting way above the 30% of the votes in the Netherlands. That's a politician that wanted to see Netherlands LEAVE the EU, basically his WHOLE political career.
Absolutely not! The selfish extension of their EEZ and complete mismanagement of their financial sector that they left for other countries to bail out is not the behaviour of a country that should be welcomed into the EU.
Today was the day I learned Iceland is not part of the European Union. I thought they were something like Norway or Switzerland. Not part of European Union fully but integrated enough that there is no issues between each other.
They are. Iceland and Norway, and tiny Liechtenstein are in the EEA and EFTA, which guarantees free trade, aswell as the Schengen area which is what guarantees free movement of goods and people. Fun fact, even some EU members like Ireland, Romania and Bulgaria aren't even in the Schengen area. EEA is basically just the full package of joining the EU in all but name, whereas EFTA is a limited deak with the basics, whereas Schengen is the DLC you can have both as an EU or non EU member, but you don't really need to. Switzerland however is only in the EFTA and Schengen, not EEA. EEA is basically just an expanded EFTA, which means Switzerland has some free trade with its EU neighbours, but can still stop more vehicles and have some more custom barriers. Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein on the other hand are all in the EU's inner market and can only have custom barriers and tariffs like an EU member state, which in practice makes them all a EU member state in all but name. They are not represented in the EU parliament, obviously, and may thus veto most EU bills. Iceland and Liechtenstein does that occasionally whereas Norway hasn't done that a single time since first joining EFTA in 1973, then the EEA in 1995, because Norway is scared of the possible consequences if they were to piss off the EU. Iceland trades alot with the UK and US, whilst Liechtenstein is a tax heavan and has Switzerland, so they both generaly don't care. whereas Switzerland, only in Schengen and EFTA, in general isn't obliged to join most EU bills and thus tends to hold popular referendums on those its government considers to be logical or adventageous to join. Edit: changed EEC to EEA
You were right. They are part of EFTA and the EEA like Norway. So very integrated with the EU, part of the single market, but not actually members of the EU.
Not that it has any bearing on their potential EU membership -- you don't need to be in Europe to become an EU member -- but Iceland isn't part of Europe, as stated in the video. It's an oceanic island that isn't part of any continental land mass and is much closer to North America than it is Europe. (Greenland is on the North American plate.) That it's dominated by people with European heritage and uses a language derived from European languages shouldn't make it part of Europe, else Canada, Argentina, Australia, among many others might find themselves facing reclassification as "Europe". We all know Europe is insecure regarding the matter of size, but...
To understand the graph at 1:28 I had to google both Euro vs Usd and Krona vs Usd, as the Euro values now for example 1.05 USD. So very far from the 0.008 Usd on the Y graph. Maybe add the Euro value on the opposite Y axe and add labels? Otherwise very interesting as usual. Thanks for the work.
"The fishing industry employs some 9000 people" Oh, that's not that many
"Or 5.3% of the population" HOLY
Yeah Iceland's population and economy are tiny. It's basically like adding a minor city that you never heard of to the EU.
More like 2%
@@johannagustsson1533 I'm quite convinced they meant the workforce. deducting children, SAHMs and the elderly, usually only about half the entire population is in employment, so that would check out
@@johannagustsson1533nevermind, they actually used the word workforce lol
The total population of Iceland is about 320 thousand people. That's less than twice the population of my own home city in Portugal, a country that is both small and with a small population with cities that are small by world's standards.
Iceland is one of those countries that everyone just assumes is part of the eu anyways
It's already a part of the Schengen Zone. So, freedom of movement exists anyways. 😅
The same goes for Norway.
They are also part of the EEA. Meaning they must abide by several EU regulations and pay membership fees (less than EU members of course, but still substantially) - but have no influence or say in EU issues. The only thing keeping Iceland out of the EU is fears over the fishing sector.
Its a few hundred thousand souls who are mostly integrated in the market and Schengen rules anyway.
And as both last world wars show, in case of conflict they would not have much of a choice anyways.
@@FischerNilsA Iceland has fewer population than my city district 😮
just wish shipping/postal companies thought that too, we are rarely counted in Europe -usually just "rest of world" which gets real expensive
If you ever do videos on Iceland again, i'm here telling you that Icelanders go by their first names, always. You calling her "Frostadóttir" doesn't make any sense when it comes to Iceland, we don't go by last names as they are just an indicator of who our father is, it is not rude to call her by her first name.
Edit: Did not foresee the shitstorm a simple clarification would cause. Everyone do as you please, i'm not trying to cause offense nor saying that anyone else is causing offense by not addressing Icelanders in the right way. It was just a FYI for the channel.
Not sure if you noticed but the video is in English, not in Icelandic.
Já mér finnst það vera skrítið þegar fólk kallar mig Björnsson
@@dabi2k and? The op just gave some useful information in a cordial manner, what's wrong with it?
@@dabi2k Their names are Icelandic though. You don't refer to Xi Jinping as Mr. Jinping do you, because you know Xi is the family name and can adjust how you refer to him as appropriate. Not hard
Ok buddy
Just to add to the euro discussion. Many large companies in iceland use the euro for their finances, but those same companies lobby heavily to make sure that the rest of the country does not use the euro. By doing this they can benefit from crashing the krona, making labor cost low, making loans for them cheap (but very expensive for others) and also can use the opportunity to buy up real-estate.
The same in Czechia, actually. Big business operates in EUR.
Big business are such leeches.
@@carlossaraiva8213 Especially because accountability just becomes so diffused. It's not like any one person decides it to be that way. It's just accumulated over time, and resting at the border between what's legal and what's unethical.
@@Sco10 truth
Losing one island, gaining another island…
More mouths for Europeans to feed. Especially considering illegal mass immigration.
A better one
Better one, not by economy
its a very niche industry, only employing 5% of the pops and its owners are the richest of the country, of course they wont want to open the fisihing zones because they will lose their monopoly. the fishing magnates are fearmongering the citizens, but its not 1779 anymore world is global and fish is not the one and only food source of the country.
Getting the best cod for sure!
Please always share your sources in the videos when showing graphs
This
Yep. Otherwise she is presenting fake news.
@@Perun944 Not presenting sources doesn't entail fake news, but it does make it less reliable for the audience.
You don't have to always show sources for graphs...
As a pro-EU Scandinavian I would love to see Iceland join the Union.
But only if the Icelandic people want to. A majority in favour of joining for several years before joining.
Opt-out for the fisheries sounds reasonable, and the EU needs to reform the fisheries anyway to stop over-fishing.
Same for Norway.
also probably no Euro adoption seems reasonable. They are geographically too far away from the common market for it to make sense, and the Euro would just hold them back by not allowing them to have their own monetary policy.
Hi, can you just tell me why you are in favour of giving away your sovranity to a distant, corrupt, obscure entity that does literally nothing for citizens interests?
Yeah, Norway and Iceland are as prosperous as they are because they're not in the EU.
Bcs its based@@federikus2928
@@federikus2928
"sovranity"
I don't think Iceland can afford to share it's fishing areas.
Their population is so small and their fishing grounds so large, they are not even able to take full advantage of the fishing opportunities.
Well since the UK isn’t part of the EU anymore their biggest competitor is gone
Then negotiate an exemption.
@@buddy1155 as they said in the video, their economy is in large part based on their fishing. And it's already not going too well now. Having to share it with so many other countries, would only make it worse surely?
Cod War 4 Age of European Union
"Support for the EU has increased"
Literally shows a graph of it stagnant for 10 years
A project of peace and cooperation as strong as the EU, is the major historic conquest in the history of Europe, the most conflictuous continent on earth untill the EU was born.
@miguelmelchior986 bros acting like Asia doesn't exist
Came here for this.
@@Fly_Slo Just because Asia has a lot of conflicts as well doesn't mean they have *more* conflicts in sum-total history.
@@predabot__6778 they probably do they go waaaay back. China, Russian Horses, the huns, the middle east, Assyria, Babylon, Persia, India, Japanese unification. I'm pretty damn sure Asia has waaay more. I mean by mere math Asia is many times larger than Europe, also has probably older documentation too.
Can we talk about how funny it is that on the Inflation graph at 4:48 they had to cut down Turkeys line so it can be shown? In reality their line would be at least twice as long which goes to show how utterly fried their economy is
Way to exaggerated: it is not fried! It's is marinated in butter and Mediterranean herbs, then made to swim in hot olive oil. Then it is dipped in sugar water and shoved down the throat of Turkish people. In a loving way ... of course. Blessed be the visionary, democratically elected 😉, leader of Turkiye. May he reign for all time!
Yeah but Erdogan prefers to bomb Syria instead of fixing the economy
I mean...somehow, they're still alive 🤷♂️
@@tomsriver2838 Well yeah but being half-alive isn't exactly "good". I don't think any regular person in Turkey is benefiting from their life savings losing 50%+ of their value in a year.
european turks are happy, cheap vacation !
I want to Progressive Party is one of the most conservative parties in Iceland, and the oldest. The name probably made more sense when they started, 100 years ago.
They advocated for more tractor imports for farmers to make them more efficient... back then it was progress... Now they just want toll booths on the roads
Same in Norway (except they are not old and used to have an even sillier name), we also have a center right party called "Left" and the "Center party", who, eh, is single issue focused on the periphery.
If you take a closer look, you'll notice a lot of parties have names that are almost the opposite of what they actually stand for.
@@msuomtv Iceland also has a party calling itself the Center party which is on the far right!
Ah yes. Like the "Liberal Democratic Party" in Japan, which has been (mostly) in power since 1955 and was headed by a Showa-fascist war criminal.
I live in Iceland and I dont know anyone who wants to join the EU.
The majority of the nation is against joining the EU. Culturally, it is unlikely that it will join the EU.
When polling is done in the Iceland, it is often heavily leaning towards college educated people, from people in office jobs. When actual elections are held, the results very often swing in the opposite direction than what the polls had indicated, that is because the working class is to busy to answer questionnaires.
Countries with small economies which have their own independent currencies find that it' very costly protecting their currencies against speculators making a run on their currencies in the foreign exchange market. The flipside is that they lose monitory control and are left with only fiscal policy.
We can already not be trusted with monetary control. Bring on the Euro and their historically always lower inflation.
As a heavily export driven economy it is likely against Iceland's interest to join the Eurozone. In fact I would argue it was against everyone's interest except the Netherlands and Germany, given the massive structural unemployment it created in Spain and Italy.
While I would be extremely happy to welcome our Icelandic friends into the fold, I must add that:
- a 51% versus 49% referendum is undesirable.
Ideally they should aim for at least a 65% versus 35% to make sure a REAL majority of Icelanders is on board.
- Icelandic politics has some seriously shady corners. Most politicians openly lobby with multinationals, often to obtain results that are actually detrimental for common Icelanders. This could lead to open frictions with the EU.
- Fisheries and immigration risk becoming two devastating time bombs.
As for the fisheries, Iceland is essentially used to do as it pleases and that won't be possible.
Immigration, in particular, is already endangering the Icelandic language, with most people currently employed in the tourism sector unable to utter a single word in Icelandic. With a population so small, the risk is great.
@idreota:Finally someone with sense in this discussion thread.
@idraote:Greetings btw from Iceland.
well that is a bit extrem but yeah 55% with a minimum of 60& participation or 60% should be the norm
Iceland is already part of Schengen and Dublin agreement, so there would be little impact on immigration.
Island did it the right way by slowing signing to EU major prerequisites.
All Nordic countries should join cause historically they have always been part of Europe in one way or another.
If Iceland does this, they can kiss goodbye to their fishing industry. A crazy idea.
The UK being out of the EU probably makes the fishing negotiations easier, as they would probably have been the main threat to Icelandic fisheries within the EU and were even responsible for a couple of invasions of Icelandic fisheries known as the "cod wars". It would also be funny to see the UK surrounded in all four cardinal directions by EU member states if Iceland joined.
Yes I’m sure the UK is terrified of the threat from Iceland 😂
The Cod Wars were a looong time ago.
Agreed on the fact that this would help with negotiations. Many of those "EU vessels" would have long way to go. So at most Irish and some Scandinavian would make the trip. Previously with UK - they would "love" to have their hands on Iceland fisheries.
Though I agree with some comments that do say that EU needs to reform fisheries anyway.
I think that Iceland needs to start negotiations first - arrive at some plan of joining - then have referendum and then work out the details. So that people don't have to vote on completely nebulous ideas.
@jonphoenix bro doesn't know how hard we f*cked the UK in those skirmishes
and when big brother america stepped in they scolded the brits, not us
I’m from Iceland. For years, the businesses and conservative party have completely fear mongered the EU, suggesting the union would destroy Iceland’s fishing waters. While they completely monopolize every resource on our Very isolated island. Always rubbed me the wrong way.
The same thing will happen under the EU, you're just trading one monopolizer for another. Your waters won't be yours anymore and they will heavily restrict your way of life. That's one reason why the UK left the EU.
Also with Britain out of the EU the main problematic child for iceland is no longer a concern, at this point I think we would all benefit if we worked together to get the most out of iceland resources and to improve the country and the union as a whole.
I have no idea if this is gonna be the case for Iceland but With Greenland it kinda happened thou, that’s why they left
They'll for sure take all your fish. This is offset by other benefits though
@@skydragon5555 you know, Germany is possibly leaving eu. If that happens, the eu is done for
Just so you know: Icelandic last names are patronymic, so you should just use their first names.
Lots of names are patronymic, doesn't mean we don't use them.
No one calls Mohammad Bin Salman simply Mohammad, or Osama Bin Laden simply Osama, if anything, more people call them Bin Salman and Bin Laden respectively.
@@NK-vd8xi Not like that, his sons will still be Bin Laden, no? Icelandic last names are directly derived from the name of the father (or mother).
@@NK-vd8xiReferring to someone by just their father's name is weird - it's similar to calling someone 'Jesse's dad'. That's just not how you address someone in a (semi)formal setting.
Boris Johnson has a last name that he shares with his family. His kids are named Johnson, his dad was. In Iceland, his kids would have the patronym Borisson/Borisdaughter. There is no sense of a shared name.
@@AdanSolas not traditionally, they've formalised their name to BinLaden now but it literally means Son of Laden.
Almost all Arabic names with Bin/Ibn (=Son) are patronyms as opposed to formalised surnames.
English names worked the same, Johnson, Jackson, Thomson etc
@@ifer1280 no, it's not weird, it's actually the norm in many parts of the world and was the norm in English too, which is why we have the name Johnson to begin with in the first place.
The reality, oddly enough, is that Iceland is MORE integrated into the EU than the UK ever was throughout its membership, even though Iceland has never been a member…
Integrating Iceland would not be a problem for the EU.
Fisheries would be the only sticking point.
Mind you, the EU’s Common Fisheries Policy would be vastly improved by adopting Iceland’s sensible and sustainable approach.
Iceland shouldn't under any circumstance give away their fishing waters and it seems highly unlikely that the EU would give them a concession to stay out of the common fisheries policy.
Or the EU would make these concessions, the EU has learned to be more flexible in what they want and what sovereign nations want.
I for one welcome our Viking brothers and sisters
Stop using vikings as a name whenever you get the chance, please :) that was an occupation of a small part of the population over a thousand years ago. You are probably just as much related as any of us are, statistically speaking. Vikings were horrible people. I don't go around calling Americans slave-owners for example 😅
Why do you do that? Vikings were evil people according to the left and the icelandic people would have to agree to multiple thousands islamic immigrants a year or be fined. is that a good and welcomming think for your ''viking'' brotehrs and sisters? xDD
I don’t. I want to preserve Iceland from all the third worlders you force on members
Nei takk!
As an Icelander who follows the news and politics very closely, this video is an accurate explanation of the situation in Icelandic politics.
Being in the EU and on the Euro would probably be beneficial in long term. The fishing issue is not trivial though. It’s likely not just jobs but the cultural link to fishing that makes it such a tough issue
The Euro currency has essentially never benefited anyone. The lack of currency control lead to structural unemployment in much of the Eurozone outside Germany and the Netherlands.
@@XandateOfHeaven I'd disagree with that. Countries only have an issue if they are fiscally irresponsible such as Greece was. Countries such as Ireland have definitely benefited from membership. The biggest advantage is the ease to which it makes it for business/consumers to operate within the Euro zone.
@@keiththoma2559 It's not about fiscal irresponsibility, it's that poor countries with worse infrastructure and a less educated population can't compete with exports from rich countries if they can't make their exports cheaper by devaluing their currency.
Greece, Spain and Italy would have had to overspend for their infrastructure to catch up to Germany and the Netherlands. This issue is too widespread to be attributed to individual responsibility. The reason Spain and Greece have structural unemployment and Poland doesn't is currency control.
Blaming national governments for the systemic failure of the Euro currency is politically motivated by saving face on the failed Euro experiment.
@@XandateOfHeaven It 100% is around fiscal irresponsibility and bad governance. Greece had crazy laws such as license and resections that limited number of workers in sectors etc such as truck drivers.
@keiththoma2559 That's over regulation not fiscal irresponsibility, but that's another thing the EU doesn't help with by adding an additional layer of government regulations on top of local, subnational and national.
Economies can't have 20% unemployment without some sort of currency structural issue. It just isn't natural.
Fishery used to be the largest export of Iceland, and so they were extremely sensitive to being able to fish their own fish and not share their fishing quotas with the EU. This is historically what has kept both Iceland and Norway out of the EU (Norway also being protective of their oil). More recently tourism in Iceland has grown to be twice the size of fishery and is still growing, while metal exports have gotten to about the same size and is growing fast too, while fishery is growing slower. So things are changing. But lets not get ahead of ourselves.
It's not like we're losing all of our fish. Just some.
As a Norwegian I have never heard anyone in Norway be concerned for our oil in discussion of joining the EU.
Agriculture was the biggest issue. If you live as a farmer in the Arctic and have to grow crops in between rocky mountains, there's no way of competing with continental farmers with completely different conditions for production, so it would mean an effective end to Norwegian agriculture beyond milk, potato and sheep.
@@StormCrownSrstill, Iceland and Norway should push for a reform of the EU fisheries.
If Iceland has more fish than it can fish, that is great and should be used to keep fish stocks stable.
@@sciencefliestothemoon2305 no-one has more fish than they can fish. that's not how fisheries work. there's no-where on the seven seas where we're not over-fishing right now.
@Nabium under the Arctic ice?
All the arguments I hear are opportunistic ones. "It is currently in our benefit to join, because...". And this is not great. The EU doesn't need more countries on board that join when the going is tough, then leave again when things get better or other opportunities present themselves. Brexit was a hard breach of trust, as is the defiance of Hungary and possibly Romania. I think we should add a minimum term for joining, for example 50 years, to prevent these on-and-off-again situations. But most importantly, nations should join because they believe in the things the EU stands for, like democracy and cooperation and solidarity; not because they see it as a currently favorable transaction.
I agree we are doing great so it would be foolish to join a Union with so much turmoil.
@@andriandrason1318 Very witty! And reinforcing my opinion.
The EU does not stand for democracy. If it did then it would allow European parliament to introduce legislation instead of just veto it. The EU is an anti-democratic organization meant to circumvent democratic opposition to neo-liberal economic policy. Look at the language you use, "defiance". You aren't even pretending there is benefit to the organization.
@@andriandrason1318 "So much turmoil" is exaggerate. The Union is strong and can get much stronger with ambitious people and countries in it
hell freezes before any other state leaves the EU. people might say shit but support of EU is well above 80% in Hungary. one thing what politicians say and an other thing is what people believe
The Icelandic people have not been consulted on this matter yet. Just hold your horses, please. The new coalition government has not yet come up with clear common policies, and the people of Iceland are bright enough to notice if such decisions are made without their consent. This video even admits that a referendum would have to be held, and it so happens that many Icelanders deplore recent developments in Europe as a whole. Leading up to a referendum, a lot of good arguments against joining would come to the surface, even if other countries already stuck in the EU pretend that it’s the only way forward.
It'd be really cool if iceland joined the eurozone. I bet their coinage designs would be absolute bangers.
so cool just for trinkets? nothing about the economic impacts?
@@zackgravity7284 no he cant talk about that because it will be bad just signing EU energy pact 1 doubuld my power bill and i fail to sea how having 2 govs is better it cost lot more to hold out corrupt leaders like Ursula and also if you whats the news you know Germany is having a real bad time WW and PORSHE are going to USA the energy bill in EU has gone up quit a bit so industry in EU is tanking nobody with common sense will go fore that
1. Her name is Kristrún. She is Frostadóttir as her father is named Frosti. The new government has agreed to hold a referendum about what to TO DO. I expect we will know what people what people think is better for our country.
I literally don't get what the EU has to offer Iceland. They will be forced to share fishing rights and take in a quota of asylum seeking immigrants with no skills, both will cost them. It's not like they have a real export economy that would benefit from integration.
They are already one of the biggest aluminium producers in Europe.
@@gaborrajnai6213All the plants producing Aluminium are owned by the US.
Iceland is taking in a lot of asylum seekers. The country is in the EEA (i.e. in the Single Market) and the Schengen zone and part of the Dublin agreement. It can change its rules on immigration be it outside or inside the EU. There would be no change to immigration were Iceland to join fully.
Taking in refugees is in and of itself a benefit to the world and therefore Iceland and we already do it a whole lot so their quota would probably just muck things up since we've already got a pretty solid system set up.
This is not quite correct. Iceland doesn't have a standing army, true, but it has a defense force, the country has experience with the logistics of annual NATO exercises and the small IRCU haa been deployed as part of peacekeeping missions. Yes, this is not the same as a standard military operated by other countries, but there are structures and institutional knowledge to build on.
Iceland is a paying member of NATO and has NATO bases as far as i read. So they pay NATO for their defense but don't have military personel or equipment themselves. (so basicaly the money they invest in their military security leaves the country mostly, and is not comming back much in terms of taxes, and does not pay a direct wage for any of their own citizens. What i mean is every country that has an army pays their soldiers and those soldiers thus have work and buy the things for their daily life ect from their income and so the part of the money comes back to the country by taxes and that makes the soldiers cheaper than they seem and employed.)
They are more or less already in. We can formalise it in a week if they wish so.
Infrastructure repairs across the country due to volcanic eruptions? No, just in the localised area of the periodically erupting volcano, specifically around the Blue Lagoon and associated geothermal power plant and the nearby fishing village and only amounts to building lava berms and making good road, hot water and electricity connections over the latest lava field.
Please! Iceland would make a great member in the EU- Family!
No. My ancestors were harmed by them.
@@GardenGuy1942our ancestors were harmed by almost everyone mate😂👻
This EU - mafia would destory them
@@GardenGuy1942who are your ancestors
Are you ready to take shitloads of Africans?
EUs stance on fisheries is crazy. Demanding that Iceland gives up control of their main resource if they join the union is just bizarre. What will Icelanders do when their fishing areas are flooded with huge factory fishing vessels from across Europe?
Such a small country so dependent of one main sector would be eviscerated when abiding to the EU rule. But hey, at least the EU will be able to make it more 'multicultural'. That will surely enough help the island.
Yes. It would. We need more workers. Screw your bloated bigoted ass.
It is already in the Schengen area.
@@Spacemongerr Schengen just means you can visit without a passport. EU citizens don't have a right to stay longer than 60 days
@@tpower1912 You're wrong. EU/EEA/CH citizens can stay up to 90 days in Iceland, not 60. If one secures a job (they have the exact same rights in the labor market as Icelandic citizens) or they can prove they have sufficient funds to support themselves otherwise, they can register with the appropriate authorities and, start working and stay indefinitely. Same applies to Icelandic citizens in other EU/EEA countries and CH.
Welcome, Björklanders. Happy to Björk you.
Seeing an EEA country become a full member would be wild.
@Andy-dg1pj That would prevent Iceland from going bankrupt like they did in 2008.
@Andy-dg1pj Based.
@Andy-dg1pjthe best excuse is that the people don’t want it, we’ve voted on EU membership twice, the vote failed horribly twice. We aren’t pressured by our Scandinavian neighbours and after 600 years of foreign rule we won’t be ruled by Brussels. Despite your wishes us Norwegians are more than content with the status quo
It has happened before. Austria, Sweden, Finland.
Fun fact: Technically, all EU states are also EEA states. (But not vice-versa)
@Andy-dg1pj Me as well - in fact, in order for Europe to remain relevant and sustainable, we probably have to do it - alone we are far, far weaker than the USA, Russia and China in not just Military, but Economy and culture as well.
And you touch on the most important aspect of the EU, the whole reason we did it: to PREVENT a third pan-european war - World-War3 would, as always, start in Europe, but this time it could easily mean the end of all European states, or possibly the entire world. The EU is a means towards preventing that - that makes it one of the greatest human endeavours ever made, to me - almost a holy thing, in a way.
Honestly, I would only go for a referendum if they see that there is a somewhat clear stable majority of ~60% for EU membership.
I find it somewhat admirable that there are people that support a referendum whilst also being against what is voted on. It's like "I don't support the motion but I love democracy so let's vote!"
Then again, is it justifiable that 40% can block the will of the majority? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯ That’s for others to decide
I said Brexit should have been treated like a constitution change poll (requiring 2/3s of the vote to win here in Germany) and I still say it here. ou shouldneed overwhelming support to join or leave. No one gains by the revolving door that was UK membership.
Well I am sure nobody will object to Iceland joining the EU. They are a serious country.
I think Iceland and Norway will join the EU *eventually*, at some point over the next few decades. But I don't know if it will be next year or during this next government's tenure. One thing I'd say is that if they're going to hold a referendum on EU membership they should also really hold a simultaneous referendum on the Euro as well, to settle that questions too.
But there's no reason for them to join. Norway is one of the wealthiest countries in Europe. They've managed just fine without joining.
Norway hasn't a single reason to join the EU and frankly neither does Iceland
@@XandateOfHeaven Both Norway and Iceland (and Switzerland as well, btw) are already part of Schengen and EEA; EU citizens can live and work in them and vice versa and they dutifully accept all new EU laws and regulations. Literally the only reason not to join is inertia and fisheries, and those are both solvable and relatively transient.
Assuming an EU will still exist then.
@@sontohartono True, it will be replaced by United States of Europe by then.
I'm so glad this lady finally recorded her own version of "please subscribe" intro. It always felt so jarring when Jack's voice would jump out then return back to hers.
It sounds like brussels is getting ready to enrich Iceland
Maybe Iceland is far enough to get an exemption for the fisheries? It is not as much of a problem as dealing with fishing in the Balt and the Med.
I think EU should leave Norway and Iceland sovereignty when it comes to fishing. Already lack of sovereignty is one of the reasons why there is a far-right increase. Such move would gain the EU more support.
Can'T contribute anything to the fishing rights as i know too little about it, but to the second part: it's mostly the *perceived* lack of soverignity that is the problem. Most governments and EU sceptical political parties in europe do something i would call shitty practice: they blame any unpopular decision and outcome of anything on the EU. And anything positive/popular on themselves. So people often have a wrong picture of what the EU actually did, and what they didn't. Media also does put fuel on those fires.
One example to me is the discussion on the EU dilligence rules for companies. Media, EU sceptical parties ect made absolutely false claims and people run with it. A collegue of mine came up to us and told us "the EU now wants that in every book sold, the GPS position of every tree used has to be printed in the last pages of the books, they are gone mad in the EU!" (many newspapers where i live printed that BS)
So i tried to find out what the EU actually decided. And it turned out to be not real.
About trees used, they ruled that any company doing that has to verify which sort of tree, and from which piecce of land the tree was, when it was felled and processed. And to keep that data for 5 years.
And as nobody checks the truth behind what they get told, especially people who are likely to vote for the current far right parties in europe, they are easily lied to and have a wrong impression about the actual sovereignity of their country, and the interferrence of the EU.
Btw.: any decision the EU takes, every member country is influencing. Norway less so. They and the swiss basically are paying to be part of the market, but have no say in anything.
Iceland must accept EURO to join. The ability to join EU without adopting the EURO is no longer available
Yes. But nothing says you have to actually fulifll the convergence criteria.
As a non-Icelander I really believe Iceland is better not being in the EU. They can't afford to sacrifice their fishing rights and I firmly believe free movement into their borders will do more harm than good in the long run.
Iceland has been living with free movement with the EU for the past 30 years now!
I’ve seen maybe seven foreign elections from TLDR so it’s pretty surreal to see my own country on here
Joining the EU has the potential to be absolutely disastrous for us though. We’re so small that we’d essentially get no say in matters. Especially when it comes to our fish. We quite literally fought a “war” with the British to ensure our right to kick them out of our fishing grounds! Other reasons include the fact that we don’t actually fulfill the requirements to adopt the euro and the fact that France and Germany are economically stagnating (Germany especially seems to think the year’s still 1989). Economically, adopting the EU is also mostly only beneficial during already stable times. During economic downturns you *want* your currency to reflect that fact. Otherwise, you’re completely screwed. That’s why, in 2008 we managed to bounce back much more smoothly than Greece did - they had the Euro, which remained “stable”, we had our króna. Besides that, the EU doesn’t care about us. During the 2008 crisis, the British put us on a terrorist list! Maintaining relations with other countries is definitely good, especially as we are so small, but we really can’t lose sight of the fact that we are also quite insignificant. If we give up our independence, we gain very little power in its stead. The EU makes much more sense for bigger countries like France or Germany. I also don’t really understand what people these polls talk to. Most decently educated people I personally know are very skeptical of the EU. Rant over.
By the way, who the hell is Frostadóttir? I thought her name was Kristrún.
Not a War but Wars as there were 3 such.
We dont have the British anymore. Which means if they want to steal your fisheries we will defend them.
Iceland is doing amazing as it is, don't risk it.
Joining or not is up to you but don’t reflect the grievences you have with the British onto us all, that’s extremely annoying.
It's a great place to see, I was there in 2022 for Reykjavik half marathon and managed to see vulcano erupting, waterfalls, black beach and other picturesque landscapes. It was really impressive, there are no such views anywhere else I guess.
I have one observation which might be connected to growing EU support there - there is a lot of Polish people there. I met many my fellow Polish people there, according to wikipedia Poles consitute more than 5% of Icelandic population. And we're quite pro-EU in Poland, so it might tip the scale.
The EU needs to find a way of membership where Island can maintain the important parts of their rights of fishery. Fishery is a vital part of Icelandic economy and Island can make only little concessions on that front. On the other hand the major governing and opposition parties need to agree on membership. It makes no sense to negote something that immeditately gets walked back as soon as the majorities change and a different government gets elected. EU membership is a long term plan that needs one or two decades to process in full.
We could also just keep things the way they are. Contriving a way for Iceland to join without giving up their fishing rights is trying to solve a problem that doesn't exist.
Don't do it Iceland! You already have all the benefits while not being a member, don't agree to take the cons too 😂
As a surface level discussion this coverage isn't all bad. Thing is that things are pretty broken here as well as in other countries and the nepotism and base corruption is on an insane level. The housing market here is also insane and the banks that run it are the main culprits amongst others as well. Inflation is a drop in the ocean compared to the insane interest rates and our currency is a joke that the big companies here dont even use, they make they're business in euros but force the public to use the krona. I'm trying to get away from this island as soon as possible and so are many more Icelanders, i hope im not to late however and that a new financial crisis isn't just behind the corner wich means ill be stuck here drowning in debt and no prospects of increasing my salary to keep up with the interest rates. Then again what do people expect from a nation founded by Norwegian tax dodgers and viking pirates, we are when all comes down to it two faced crooks that are just extreme good at marketing and image shaping ourselves to foreigners. Btw its mostly foreign labour that holds this island together with cheap labour in the tourist industry and in the fish processing plants.
It would be great to have them on boaard.
Ireland has benefited very well from being part of the Europoean Family.
Yes we see that with all the turmoil and unpayable house's.
Damn the last time I was this early Churchill has just dropped his "Damn man Hitler has no chill fr fr" video
"The Hitler situation is crazy"
"Hitler is not bussin' fr fr"
"once again germany took a huge L in this war"
You sure it wasn’t Hitler saying that about Churchill? Cuz last I checked Hitler sent him 6 peace treaties.
"that ruling party they have is skibidi as heck, no cap mate, cheers"
@TLDRnewsEU In Iceland you would never address someone by their patronym or matronym e.g. Frostadóttir, as that’s not her name, but only indicates who her father was. So when talking about Icelandic people always refer to them by first name or by their full name.
Fishing rights is a big deal and a reason not to join
Usually one would use a transition from the video topic to the sponsor ad. I really don’t like, how you just kept on reading the text, as if the ad was part of the video proper. There’s worse players out there of course, but especially for a news channel strict separation of editorial content and bought-and paid for content should be paramount.
A lot of TH-cam providers are doing this kind of seamless transition to their sponsor's material now. It used to be a much-lampooned feature of American broadcasting. Newspapers may also fail to distinguish between news, press releases and advertising when it relates to their proprietors.
Iceland is too chill like that
Deffinaltly too chilld for thousands of violent islamic migrants. But oh well. The psychotic left will do phsycotic left things
It's a chronic condition.
However islandic people decide. I would happily welcome them to work on a common future that benefits both sides.
"A new poll says 54 percent support joining the EU. "
Probably proceeds to fail by like 30
Polls lie, they only interview liberal city dwellers, and forget about everyone else.
If it already wants at exemption then it shouldn’t join at all. That shows lack of commitment
About adopting EUR: in contradiction to what you said in the video, Iceland actually would not(!) seek exemption from EUR. Moreover. in fact even and particularely representatives of the Independence party have propagated to adopt EUR (20 years ago), even without joining EU. They had to learn the EU would not like this. Moreover, the only point the pro-EU group Evrópuhreyfingin is advertising repeatedly IS joining the EUR, to presumingly achieve less inflation and allover lower price levels.
Iceland already is in the EFTA. It's an EU law taker but not an EU law maker. That's the big difference between partnership and membership. Living in Iceland right now, I can say I doubt EU membership would change for the better. Therefore, I strongly believe that Iceland could seek a currency union with Norway by adopting the Norwegian króna (NOK) just like Liechtenstein does with the Swiss Franc (CHF).
This would stabilise the economy to a fair level 👌
There are pros and cons joining the EU.
The "pro" eu parties did not want to talk about joing the EU before the elections so I think many of the voters where not voting for them to join the EU.
The inflation is high but the wages have also risen alot, so to compare the Euro to the ISK is hard, tbere are so many factors
Their polling was atrocious until they stopped talking about joining the EU and adopting the Euro. That kinda talk is considered treasonous by many in Iceland.
As a full EU member state with a small population they’d have few MEP’s to influence policy in the parliament. Additionally, with QMV in the council, they’d be better off staying out- they get almost all the benefits already and keep their exclusive fishing rights.
I can see Iceland 🇮🇸 joining the EU they would be very welcome, from their nearest EU Neighbour, Ireland 🇮🇪,
Denmark (because of the Faroe Islands): “Am I a joke to you?”
@@Bear-c4xFaroe isn't in the EU though, they are like Greenland, part of Denmark but not in the EU.
The promise to introduce the Euro when joining the EU is linked to one important condition: as soon as the requirements are met. As the countries of Sweden, Poland, the Czech Republic, Hungary and Romania show, this can take many years.
... we all know these countries dont "meet" the requirements because they still don't want to implement the euro. if they wanted to they'd had the euro a long time ago.
I wonder if the EU should be reformed to a federal republic first before accepting new candidates -- even though how well fit Iceland and possible other candidates are.
Politically the EU is becoming ungovernable.
The EU is sort of untenable. The Euro currency is a failed experiment that caused massive structural unemployment, and the governing system is not democratic enough. More democracy and less currency control would be difficult.
@@XandateOfHeaven Both the EU and the Euro are huge successes. Unemployment has nothing to do with the euro currency, just like the USD has nothing to do with unemployment in the mid-West states of the US.
@Jurjen. What are you talking about? The Euro is essentially entirely responsible for the unemployment crisis in Southern Europe. This is exactly what happened in the European sovereign debt crisis. You can't just gaslight everyone into pretending this didn't happen.
There's actually a good case that parts of the United States should have separate currencies. For the rust belt it is more important for them economically that their exports are competitive than they are able to import at higher prices. But more significantly the inequality in productivity between US states is not as significant as the difference between EU states, at least in part because of a more integrated infrastructure policy.
@@XandateOfHeaven No, the unemployment has everything to do with competitiveness and *that* has everything to do with (labor) productivity. In short, those countries were lazy and everytime shit hits the fan, they deprecated their currency -- in effect stealing sometimes half of the people's money.
Now with the Euro their politicians can't do that anymore so they have to face the real economic problems.
It's a cultural thing but they'll learn -- like the Greek did in since 2008.
It's a bit easy to blame Southern Europe of "laziness" AND it's a bit silly to blame it all on the Euro.
There is no easy one directional answer for complex problems guys.
I've always gone on the assumption that Iceland, Norway and Switzerland will eventually join the EU at some point, but only when the people in those countries decide to join.
But in the meantime, the EU has enough countries in the east that want to join, chances are, as more countries join and make a success of it, it's going to be harder for the remaining countries on the outside to not want to join at some point, especially if the EU continues to expand.
Switzerland didn't join the UN until 2002. It is a country which values it's sovereignty. The problem is that Norway and Switzerland have bilateral agreements for free trade. There is no real benefit to joining.
Iceland should stay out - I don’t see how membership would improve their situation.
It would make it worse, Brussels has no business in how Reykjavik conducts their business.
says the brexiteer
in the EU we don't need another Hungary or pre-brexit UK... Iceland should NOT be considered a candidate nor granted the ability to waste our time by starting negotiations until a referendum is held and show a very high interested in serious EU integration...
Hi, for the fact that Iceland's fishery and following externalities contributes for 25% of Iceland's GDP... would you mind sharing source for it ? (I am now writing a thesis on that topic, so just wandering)
Not to mention forced refugees/migrants dumped on them with some EU love
@oldbordergeek we need workers. Just because you fear normal people does not mean the rest of us do.
@@StormCrownSr😂 are you that dellusional? Go look at paris berlin or london and see the ghettos with your beloved workers spiraling 🎉 also have fun with 80% german/french laws on your island 🎉 democracy? 😅 watering down local opinions to zero 😅😅😅
@@oldbordergeek Currently the EU is not forcing any redistribution of refugees. And it such rules require unanimous votes of the EU Council which won't allow any change to this.
@@listenerobserver7160you are very uninformed wich is evil when you sprout nonsense. My EU country cannot stop immigrants OR send them back because of EU treaties. I hope we can leave the EU fast with their ecological fetishes. This is not what we gained indepence for hundreds of years ago!!!! 🎉🎉🎉🎉🎉
If Iceland chooses to join, welcome to the EU from me in Dublin.
Iceland needs more cultural enrichment
Would be hilarious to see a nation of 300k people face a big mass of immigration from those interesting Islamic paradises
Hopefully. I love to go and paying in Euros would be great.
A candidate member nation should have bi-partisan local support. The question cannot depend on which party is in power. That is not a stable foundation for such a structural decision.
@ If you read my comment as intended, you wouldn’t have replied as such. The point stands: a solid, multi-party support is needed as well as a referendum to complete EU candidature on a sustainable basis. Not sure why you’re using my comment as a platform to call the UK and the US ‘third world countries’ either. FYI - I don’t live in either of them. You really need to chill.
@@lours6993can’t see anyone but your comment
@@inteallsviktigt Becasue it’s been deleted…
One of the issues is that a lot of Icelanders think joining the EU is a magical solution to all the nation's problems. If things start getting better I can see support for joining dropping again.
If Iceland had a (convincing) referendum and would put everything behind it they could meet the basic entry conditions in 2030 or so. Enough time for entry negotiations.
No exception to the Euro for new members! With their dependency on fish, some special agreements should be possible there. What during a time of global tensions is a bit problematic - Iceland doesn't even pretend they have any intention to defend itself. No military, no heavy arms for the police forces, nothing. As EUrope tries to ramp up the defence capability, that could be a price they would have to pay.
Iceland would be able to join much sooner than 2030, the security and defence policy has already been Provisionally closed by the EU and we are a founding member of NATO.
@@andriandrason1318 Membership to NATO is utterly irrelevant, though. Neither Ireland nor Austria are. I for one would welcome it if Iceland joined the EU.
The Euro is a failed experiment that creates structural unemployment in poorer EU countries.
@@timolynch149 It's just that not enough people here are sure, so it's likely not going to happen unless it's forced... which means that there is going to be a backlash, which isn't good for anyone.
Well, in all fairness to Iceland, even if it were to try and organize a military, the best it probably can do is a few thousand.
That's with zero institutional knowledge on military structure and strategy. Zero experience, zero equipment, it'll be all from scratch.
Makes little sense to invest so much into something so useless
They just announced that in 2027 they will have a direct vote on whether to continue the membership discussion.
Migrant Quotas will be introduces in 2026
If one EU country accepts migrants like Spain pretty much all countries accept them even if they don't want them
The EU has many flaws and they don't start here
It would be great for example for the EU to have a unified stock market
I hope that the people at Brussel realize that if they continue wanting weak boarders, then European resentment will push people to vote nationalist leaders that in turn are hostile towards the EU.
I've been saying this for years, before Brexit was a thing, but still I feel like people have not gotten the message.
@@Chronically_ChiII Are you aware that the term "Fortress Europe" is a thing? One of the EU's pillars is the Schengen-agreement, but that agreement isn't just intended to make internal EU-movement easier, but to make external movement harder - much of the policies following 2015 have been regarding how to make external immigration more difficult.
If you want a look at what happens when you remove EU-based fortifications of immigration, then just look at how the UK recently had race-riots ignited by the further disconnect from public wish, that their Non-EU based immigration-policy caused. Leaving the EU caused increased non-EU immigration - which frightened many people and made them angry.
The EU has always been, and will remain, a limiter for non-European immigration into EU-countries. So, the issue is not that the EU is made to have weak external borders, it's just that the wish for even stronger borders have grown faster than what the EU-machinery could detect or react to in time.
With that said, although I myself am NOT as scared of non-European immigration, or immigration in general, as many others (on a global scale - all countries have fears of immigrants) I do see that currently the wish of many people in the EU is to limit immigration as much as possible, and although it's not my preference, for the sake of democratic stability (to not erode belief in our core-systems, which would undermine our entire societies) I agree that the EU has to do more to decrease immigration - for the time being.
If the Icelanders should choose so, they are more than welcome in the EU 🙂
iceland is welcome to join, but i think they are better off outside the eu. There location is a long way of continental europe, so they don't have the same challenges
As an Icelandic I fully agree but we are probably the most woke infected country in Europe so you never know.
@@andriandrason1318my perception is that icelandic people are pretty chill (no pun intended)
now imagine Iceland joining EU, so all these woke Icelanders feel even more support from their European ideological siblings to implement their "superb" ideas @@andriandrason1318
@@andriandrason1318woke,….spoken like a American. Yeah island shouldn’t join like
They are already members when it comes to the vast majority of things they just do not have a voice on how EU rules are made so it makes sense for them to join and get a voice in Brussels
That and we don't have the euro.
@@StormCrownSr historically the Euro was literally one of the reasons Iceland wanted to Join the Union given the crash the Icelandic Krona experienced after the 2008 financial crisis
@@paullarne that's probably the only argument they have for maintaining the status quo considering how significant the fishing industry is for them, still will that continue to be the case? I do not know
LOL the eu is in decadence, joining would only mean having to take in "refugees"
That's the fallacious argument for every non-EU European country. The fact of the matter is they aren't, they're generally pretty successful without, and they probably wouldn't have much of a say compared to Germany and France.
In the end it comes down to money.
Cultural connections haven't been enough for the better part of the last 50 years. And as a member of NATO, Iceland has no need for the defense aspects of the EU. And being a member of Schengen, there are no Visa issues.
So what remains is money, the fiscal protection mechanisms.
How complicated can it be to make a law that says only small fishers are allowed to fish in a sustainable way and large fishing boats have to pay 90% taxes? That should keep big EU corporation out of the waters.
Mega Corpo Lobbying is the real issue
"50/50" is as far from "consensus" as mathematically possible. What you meant was that there is no current consensus regarding EU membership in Iceland.
We got Iceland joining the EU before Macedonia 💀💀
Iceland has been a member of EFTA since 1970 and the free market since 1994.
Bulgaria is in EU
Is Iceland part of the single market?
The single market includes the 27 EU member states and Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein (through the European Economic Area). Switzerland has partial access to the single market (via bilateral agreements).
Why did the UK lose the Cod Wars?
The cod wars were about fishing rights in what at the time were disputed waters but that became recognised as Icelandic.
The UK lost because international law states that Icelandic waters were up to 200 miles from the coast where previously the UK refused to recognise more than 12 miles.
Iceland didn't join after it's economy being crushed by the world financial crisis of 2008 and 2009. I don't think they will join now. Northern countries got that very CLEAR tendency to not want to be in the EU. UK never EVER joined the Shengen area or the Eurozone, and eventually it left the EU completely. Iceland never EVER joined the EU in the first place. Norway never EVER joined the EU in the first place. Sweden never EVER joined the Eurozone, even if THAT'S one of the MAIN requirements for EVERY SINGLE EU member. Denmark never EVER joined the Eurozone. Netherlands got a clear tendency to rebel against the EU more and more and go with the Nexit. Wilders is getting way above the 30% of the votes in the Netherlands. That's a politician that wanted to see Netherlands LEAVE the EU, basically his WHOLE political career.
There's no need for any excemption from joining Eurozone, it's de facto not mandatory.
i mean it de jure is
but nobody cares
As an Icelander I hope this will never happen.
Iceland should do a sort of ‘Scandinavian Union’ along with norway, denmark, far oer and sweden
What do you think ?
Prédikaðu bróðir!
Dittó.
@@Delibng No.
@@LordMagiru better off alone
Absolutely not! The selfish extension of their EEZ and complete mismanagement of their financial sector that they left for other countries to bail out is not the behaviour of a country that should be welcomed into the EU.
I would love to have Iceland in the EU, but they should manage a deal protecting their own fishing waters. (Im Dutch, not Icelandic).
Today was the day I learned Iceland is not part of the European Union. I thought they were something like Norway or Switzerland. Not part of European Union fully but integrated enough that there is no issues between each other.
They are part of the EFTA, an old rival organization against the EEC ( Old EU) and have the same treaties now.
They literally have the same deal as Norway
They are. Iceland and Norway, and tiny Liechtenstein are in the EEA and EFTA, which guarantees free trade, aswell as the Schengen area which is what guarantees free movement of goods and people. Fun fact, even some EU members like Ireland, Romania and Bulgaria aren't even in the Schengen area. EEA is basically just the full package of joining the EU in all but name, whereas EFTA is a limited deak with the basics, whereas Schengen is the DLC you can have both as an EU or non EU member, but you don't really need to.
Switzerland however is only in the EFTA and Schengen, not EEA. EEA is basically just an expanded EFTA, which means Switzerland has some free trade with its EU neighbours, but can still stop more vehicles and have some more custom barriers.
Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein on the other hand are all in the EU's inner market and can only have custom barriers and tariffs like an EU member state, which in practice makes them all a EU member state in all but name. They are not represented in the EU parliament, obviously, and may thus veto most EU bills. Iceland and Liechtenstein does that occasionally whereas Norway hasn't done that a single time since first joining EFTA in 1973, then the EEA in 1995, because Norway is scared of the possible consequences if they were to piss off the EU.
Iceland trades alot with the UK and US, whilst Liechtenstein is a tax heavan and has Switzerland, so they both generaly don't care. whereas Switzerland, only in Schengen and EFTA, in general isn't obliged to join most EU bills and thus tends to hold popular referendums on those its government considers to be logical or adventageous to join.
Edit: changed EEC to EEA
You were right. They are part of EFTA and the EEA like Norway. So very integrated with the EU, part of the single market, but not actually members of the EU.
@@paullarne thank you, I mixed those up completely. I'll be editing it now
Not that it has any bearing on their potential EU membership -- you don't need to be in Europe to become an EU member -- but Iceland isn't part of Europe, as stated in the video. It's an oceanic island that isn't part of any continental land mass and is much closer to North America than it is Europe. (Greenland is on the North American plate.) That it's dominated by people with European heritage and uses a language derived from European languages shouldn't make it part of Europe, else Canada, Argentina, Australia, among many others might find themselves facing reclassification as "Europe". We all know Europe is insecure regarding the matter of size, but...
I’m pretty sure most people assume Iceland was already part of the EU
To understand the graph at 1:28 I had to google both Euro vs Usd and Krona vs Usd, as the Euro values now for example 1.05 USD. So very far from the 0.008 Usd on the Y graph. Maybe add the Euro value on the opposite Y axe and add labels? Otherwise very interesting as usual. Thanks for the work.
Iceland?.
Okay, well thats up to Iceland then..