EU Council on enlargement: Iceland

My previous blog post looked at the conclusions of the EU Commission regarding the accession negotiations of Iceland: EU enlargement: Iceland (20 December 2010).

The member states of the European Union hold the keys to membership, so there is cause to present how the Council responded. The General Affairs Council referred to the communication from the Commission of 9 November 2010 on the Enlargement Strategy and Main Challenges 2010-2011 [COM(2010) 660], as well as the progress report “Iceland”, in:

Conclusions on enlargement and stabilisation and association process as adopted by the Council (General Affairs) on 14 December 2010 (document 17917/10)

The specific remarks with regard to Iceland are found on page 8:

Iceland

The Council recalls that, following the Commission’s recommendations in its Opinion of February 2010, accession negotiations with Iceland were opened on 27 July 2010.

Iceland is a long-standing functioning democracy with strong institutions and close ties with the EU. The overall level of preparedness to meet EU acquis requirements remains good, in particular due to Iceland’s membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) and the Schengen agreement. Iceland can be considered a functioning market economy, and could regain the capacity to deal with competitive pressure and market forces within the single market over the medium term.

Negotiations will be aimed at Iceland integrally adopting the EU acquis and ensuring its full implementation and enforcement. In line with the Negotiating Framework, the fulfilment of Iceland’s obligations under the EEA Agreement, taking full account, inter alia, of the European Council conclusions of 17 June 2010, as well as Iceland’s progress in addressing other areas of weakness identified in the Commission’s Opinion, will guide the advancement of negotiations.

In this context, the Council looks forward to the results of the screening process.

Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs

The Icelandic Ministry for Foreign Affairs offers detailed pages in English on Iceland's application for membership of the EU, and the pages Latest news show that the screening process on different areas of legislation advance rapidly, with meetings on financial services, free movement of goods, competition policy, information society and media, company law and public procurement in little more than a month.

But the Council conclusions had not yet been included among the Key documents, and the government has had little to say of late.


Media

Official conclusions usually need to be supplemented by media reports and opinions to give the lay of the land. Here are a few samples.

IceNews, Michael Huguenin: Icelanders Frosty Towards EU Membership (14 November 2010)

IceNews: Icesave contracts leaked online (14 December 2010)

Iceland Review Online: Iceland walks out of mackerel meeting (15 December 2010)

Iceland Review Online: Iceland: EU and Norway Responsible for Overfishing (16 December 2010)

The Economist: Coming in from the cold (16 December 2010)



Ralf Grahn



P.S. This is for people with an interest in EU law and politics. On Polscieu, his blog on the Ideas on Europe platform, Ronny Patz wrote an interesting entry about the legal web portal of the European Union: A new EUR-Lex: Finding documents 2.0? What if people actually found what they are looking for...

Eurobarometer media roundup reveals four readings

From a summary of the Eurobarometer controversy we set course for our following harbour: a roundup of how the latest EU-wide poll of public opinion has been received. In Roundup haven we bunker facts and arguments for the next leg of our voyage.

We find four threads of thought in the news reports and comments on the latest Eurobarometer poll.



Economic challenges

Some of the news reports and comments have focused on the growing demand for economic policy coordination and reform, the points the European Commission chose to highlight in its press release.



It’s the economy, stupid, said a curious Yankee in Europe’s court, intimating that US and EU citizens share common priorities about economic woes.



On the WSJ Real Time Brussels blog, John W. Miller highlighted a broad base of support for spending cuts and belt-tightening.



The Eurolocal blog gives extended coverage (in Catalan) to the support for economic reform: Els ciutadans de la UE, a favor de reforçar la governanca econòmica europea!



Plunging EU support

Much of the news reporting concentrated on the sinking levels of support for EU membership, something Open Europe also stressed, besides bitching about the Commission.



Marcin Grajewski recorded for Reuters that popular support for European Union membership had fallen to a nine-year low, in May when the EU was hit by sovereign-debt problems and when some member states were in recession.



Meera Louis, for Bloomberg, reported that Europeans’ confidence in the European Union dropped to a six-year low as the 27-nation bloc battled the Greece-led debt crisis.



Even prospective members have gone cold on the European project, with just 27% of Turks saying they trust Brussels, said the Bulgarian news agency Novinite.com.



Public support for the European Union has collapsed to a nine-year low in all of its 27 countries, was the reading of The Daily Express in the United Kingdom, news warmly received by anti-EU commentators.



Euro(barometer) sceptics



The European Citizen was sceptic about the possibilities to draw real policy conclusions from vague Eurobarometer questions and answers. In his latest comment, Eurocentric thought it was a pity that the Commission and Open Europe thought that they had to spin the results. He has now posted a German version of the post on the blog Ein europäischer Bürger.



According to Gary Finnegan, asking vague questions which invite predictable answers, and then concluding that the respondants support your political position is wrong.



Emerging synthesis?



In an opinion piece on Presseurop, Marco Zatterin reaches a synthesis. The European Union is plunging in the polls because more and more people feel the EU should be the one to solve the problems of the recession. As a matter of fact, three quarters of Europe is calling for more policy coordination.

Fewer people believe Europe is “a good thing” not because they’re against integration per se, but because they feel betrayed by the 27 and the way they’re handling it. They are demanding more, wrote Zatterin.



The article was originally published La Stampa (in Italian): Il tradimento dell’Europa.



Besides the Italian original and the English translation, Presseurop has published versions in Czech, Dutch, French, German, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian and Spanish.



Detailed discussion



These are the four main strands I was able to find. Most of the instant news reporting fell into one of two categories, either focusing on the demand for more ‘economic governance’ at EU level, or highlighting the declining support for membership in the European Union.

A third line of thought found expression in scepticism regarding the value of opinion polls like Eurobarometer.

A fourth thread was presented in the La Stampa / Presseurop article available in ten languages. Marco Zatterin drew his conclusions about the great expectations of Europeans and the failed delivery by the EU institutions.

Our next stages require detailed study and discussion about individual questions and results reported in the Spring 2010 Eurobarometer. How much can we, in good conscience, read into the replies?




Ralf Grahn



P.S. Comments relevant to the topic discussed in each Grahnlaw blog post are most welcome. However, the number of spam comments has skyrocketed. This is the sad reason for comment moderation, so it may take a while before your valued comment appears.

It is easier to understand a language than to use it correctly. As Eurobloggers we could and should promote interaction among Europeans across borders and between linguistic communities. Grahnlaw has adopted a multilingual comment policy:

I do my best to read comments in Danish, Dutch, English, Finnish, French, German, Italian, Norwegian, Portuguese, Spanish or Swedish, even if the Grahnlaw blog and my possible replies are in English.



Antonia on the Euonym blog (Talking about the EU) tells us that the European Commission in the UK arranges a Day of Multilingual Blogging on 26 September 2010, and the UK Representation has been joined by the multilingual aggregator Bloggingportal.eu and individual Eurobloggers. Join the event page on Facebook, spread the word through social media and personal contacts, begin preparing your blog posts and start learning a new language.

Iceland & EU: Monetary union only?

In two days (Saturday 25 April 2009) Iceland is going to vote on a new parliament, after the meltdown of the country’s financial sector and economy.

For a look at the background, you can read Iceland’s EU questions unanswered ahead of vote on EUbusiness (23 April 2009).



A few months ago, several reports indicated that the Icelandic population would be ready to change their status as part of the European Economic Area (EEA) into membership of the European Union. Later news items and blog posts have told us that many voters would want to adopt the euro currency, fewer would be prepared to start negotiations on EU membership, and even fewer imagine they would accept the accession terms.

Only the social democratic party (estimated to gain 31 per cent of the vote) is committed to EU membership.

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Monetary union?

This situation has left me wondering if the voters in Iceland have secret knowledge, or if they are unwittingly optimistic about adopting a foreign currency.

Right at the start of the Treaty on European Union the Preamble states:

RESOLVED to achieve the strengthening and the convergence of their economies and to establish an economic and monetary union including, in accordance with the provisions of this Treaty, a single and stable currency,
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EMU


The economic and monetary union (EMU) includes the common currency. Iceland is not a protectorate or an enclave, but a sovereign state. Could it dispense with economic union, meaning coordination of economic policies, the stability and growth pact and all the rest, and just go straight for the euro currency?

To my knowledge, there is no such indication in the treaties, but I am doubtful because of the existing exceptions, according to Wikipedia Montenegro, Kosovo, Andorra, Monaco, San Marino, the Vatican).



Or are the Icelanders thinking about adopting the euro unilaterally, without asking anyone?

I have to admit that I am mystified.


Ralf Grahn

Kouchner drops support for Turkey

The French foreign minister Bernard Kouchner has dropped his support for Turkish membership in the European Union. He cites the Turkish government’s pressure tactics at the NATO summit and its move away from the secular reform path.

La Turquie dans l'UE? Kouchner n'y est plus favorable, reports Libération (7 April 2009).



Le Mexique 51e État des États-Unis d’Amérique ? was Jean Quatremer’s illustration of European quid pro quo on the Coulisses de Bruxelles blog (evening 6 April 2009), with Angela Merkel fictionally supporting Mexico’s membership as the 51st state of the USA.



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We have been engaged with the same themes on this blog in previous posts.

Turkey ending its EU membership bid? (4 April 2009)



Turkey and Mexico: Join the Union! (morning 6 April 2009)



USA: Adopt Turkey and Mexico (7 April 2009)



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President Obama endorsed Turkish EU membership, but did he promote it?


Ralf Grahn