I morgon förmiddag kommer Islands utrikesminister Össur Skarphéðinsson att formellt överlämna Islands ansökan om medlemskap i den Europeiska Unionen till mig.
Det blir ceremoni, mottagning och presskonferens på Arvfurstens Palats. Och därefter kommer vi dessutom att äta lunch.
Självfallet är detta historiskt.
Det europeiska samarbetet bibehåller sin attraktionskraft. Tidigare i år har Albanien ansökt om medlemsskap, och jag vill inte utesluta att vi kommer att få ytterligare ansökningar på bordet under de kommande månaderna.
Dessa ansökningar skall självfallet var och en behandlas enligt gällande rutiner och utifrån sina respektive förutsättningar.
Som medlem av EU:s inre marknad och Schengen-samarbetet är Island dock i en kategori som ligger väsentligt före länder som inte är med i dessa delar av det europeiska samarbetet.
Men om allt detta kommer vi säkert att tala mer om på torsdag förmiddag.
Alla Dessa Dagar 
Vi hälsar med glädje Island välkomna till handelskonsortiet EU. Sedan vore det bra om vi kunde göra oss av med den politiska fernissan och reformera EU till en demokrati som åtminstone skulle hålla för en jämförelse med Kuba utan att komma på skam.
Island och Malta, två högt civiliserade och befolkningsmässigt jämnstora ö-nationer i norr och söder ger en bra kontrast åt EU.
Man kan nu undra när Norge kommer med sin ansökan om medlemsskap? Är det månne vadslagning om detta på UD?
>Det blir ceremoni, mottagning och presskonferens på Arvfurstens Palats. Och därefter kommer vi dessutom att äta lunch.
Det är ju inte utan att man blir imponerad.
Var det 2-3 dagar sedan Island bestämde sig ?
Under denna tid har allt ovanstående arrangerats och utan tvekan har ett antal fullspäckade kalendrar fått ändras.
Du verkar ha valt rätt medarbetare Carl Bildt.
Självklart är Island välkommen, ju fler som blir medlem i det Europeiska samarbetet ju bättre är det. Samtidigt tycker jag att EU borde ställa högre krav vid konflikter runt om i världen, vi börjar bli så stora nu att vi kunde trycka på med handelsbojkotter o.dyl. allt för att få stabilitet, mindre risk för kärnvapen etc.
”Det europeiska samarbetet bibehåller sin attraktionskraft.”
Jovisst, de har säkert varit väldigt attraherade hela tiden, men kom sig inte riktigt för.
Inte kan det väl vara någon omvändelse under galgen, eller…?
Välkommen Island!
Nu får ni eurovaluta före Sverige!
Det kommer mögligen som överraskning till någon, att vi här i Island har inga som heldst planer att bli medlemmar i EU. Omkring 70% af befolkningen är imot EU-medlemskap.
Ansökningen blev tvingad igenom Altinget på grund av speciella omständigheter. Stämningen i landet er som inbördeskrig pågår.
… Nu får ni eurovaluta före Sverige!
:-) Fast det är väl lite av en pyrrhus-seger.
EU-debatten begynner forsiktig i Norge nå, etter Islands søknad. Det EU-skeptikerne i Norge og Island ikke skjønner, er hvor integrert vi allrede er i EU. Men vi mangler stemmerett. Vi fikk ikke stemme i velget på EU-parlament i vår. Vi har aldri det roterende formannskapet i EU, slik Sverige nå har. Våre politikere og byråkrater sitter ikke ved bordet når ny felleseuropeisk politikk skal utarbeides, politikk som i de fleste tilfeller direkte påvirker oss. Spørsmålet er egentlig ikke EU-medlemsskap, for i praksis er vi nesten medlem allerede. Spørsmålet er om vi i Norge og Island ønsker stemmerett og medbestemmelsesrett eller ikke. Mange er tyvärr mer komfortable med å kritisere EU for det de mener EU gjør galt enn å være med og få EU til å gjøre ting riktig. Det blir for dumt. Hvis man ved vilje velger å ikke utnytte stemmeretten sin, så har man ingen rett til å klage på resultatet av politikken. Det gjelder både på nationellt nivå og på EU-nivå.
I notice no one has registered Netherlands FM opposition of Iceland’s membership, as long as the billions of savings of Dutch citizens are not compensated by Iceland Govt from the banking disaster…which has now led a Social Democratic government in Iceland to finally apply for not only Euro but full membership.
I notice that ”hariknaidu” does not understand that Iceland is being attacked by the governments of Britain and Holland. The totally unjustified application of the British Terrorist Law to Icelandic banks and properties is without precedence. This cowardly action capsized our entire banking industry, consisting of only three banks. The High Court in London has ruled, that even freezing assets of al-Qaida terrorists is forbidden by the UK Constitution.
The initial attack by the British government was followed by a joint blackmail by the British and Dutch. They tried to enforce an embargo on Iceland, stopping practically all trade and financial services to the country. When this did not succeed in starving us to submission, they used their influence with the International Monetary Fund and with several individual countries to deny us access to much needed renewal of foreign loans.
Now the British and Dutch governments are unjustly trying to force us to pay insurance to customers of one private bank. This is tried even though the Icelandic government did set-up deposit-guarantee schemes in exact accordance with Directive 94/19/EC (Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit-guarantee schemes).
According to Directive 94/19/EC:
Where as this Directive may NOT result in the Member States’ or their competent authorities’ being made liable in respect of depositors(,)
if they have ensured that one or more schemes guaranteeing deposits or credit institutions themselves have been introduced and officially recognised(,)
and (the schemes are) ensuring the compensation or protection of depositors under the conditions prescribed in this Directive.
Could it be any clearer that once the deposit-guarantee schemes have been correctly established, it is NOT the responsibility of the Member States to guarantee deposits ? The Member States are supposed to introduce deposit-guarantee schemes in accordance with Directive 94/19/EC. This Iceland did completely and correctly. It is shameful that civilised nations should turn their own laws and regulations up-side down, in order to sabotage the economy of a small friendly nation.
Britain and Holland have done an ugly deed that will ensure their infamy for hundreds of years.
You’ve misunderstood my intervention…
I was simply bringing to CB blog the action taken by Dutch FM. I also know now that Iceland has finally agreed to compensate Dutch Icesavings by an act of its parliament.
So this should clear up, I hope, as far as Dutch Gov’s
opposition goes.
”hariknaidu” you are not correctly informed. The Alþing will not accept the poisonous calix our ”friends and allies” are offering us. Under no circumstances can we accept to pay for the excessive costs of the Icesave deposits. This holds particularly true now, when so much money has been lost, thanks to the actions of the British government.
As previously explained, the Directive 94/19/EC on deposit guarantee schemes, clearly stipulates that the Member States are not even allowed to become responsible for the deposits. This is also plainly stated in many reports of the European Central Bank. As an example, we can take a report called: ”OPINION OF THE EUROPEAN CENTRAL BANK of 28 October 2008”. It says the following:
”Directive 94/19/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 30 May 1994 on deposit guarantee schemes does not currently prescribe a method for financing deposit-guarantee schemes, provided that (all of the following conditions are satisfied):
1. The costs of financing are borne, in principle, by credit institutions themselves;
2. The financing capacity of the scheme is in proportion to credit institutions’ liabilities;
3. The stability of the banking system of the Member State concerned is not jeopardised.”
Both Directive 94/19/EC and the mentioned report lead to one and only one conclusion:
Member States of the European Economic Area are not supposed to finance or be responsible for the deposit-guarantee schemes. Financing is borne by the credit institutions themselves and the deposit-guarantee schemes carry the responsibilities. The Member states are only responsible for establishing the deposit-guarantee schemes in accordance with Directive 94/19/EC. The Government of Iceland did this promptly.
A citizen of Iceland I do NOT want to join EU. Many people in Iceland do NOT want to join EU.
The fact is our parliament FORCED this bill through Thursday before last. AND DENIED THE PEOPLE THE RIGHT TO VOTE ABOUT IT. There was no referendum. Yet polls last June had shown that over 75% of the people, 76,3% to be exact, wanted a referendum about this huge issue.
EU membership for Iceland has long been a key issue for the prime minister, Jóhanna Sígurðardóttir, and the foreign minister, Össur Skarphéðinsson, and their TOTALLY EU-SIDED political party. It has long been the steadfast PERSONAL goal of Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir to make Iceland, and its people, a part of EU. And whether we like it or not. Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir has often said publicly, that we had to apply NOW while our friends the Swedes were in power. To me that is not only far fetched, if not ridiculous, but spells corruption out loud. In other words: We were not asked. And her last move was made in the parliament last Thursday fast and hard. A lot of people feel angry and sad, both at the same time. Many people lowered the Icelandic flag to half mast. A great number of people are writing about this with much anger and sadness. They feel betrayed and forced and walked all over by the Icelandic government for pushing this through the parliament with force and speed and without our vote. And while our nation is financially devastated due to 20 or 30 corrupted individuals and/or criminals. I felt immense sadness over the abuse of democracy, the corruption of the parliament, the power taken from the people. Many citizens here believe this is connected to Icesave, which commonly is called ICE-SLAVE. They believe Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir will do just about anything to drag us into EU, willing or not. They believe EU and Icesave are directly connected like this: Britain and the Netherlands will oppose Jóhanna´s foremost PERSONAL goal of joining EU, if we do not pay the private debt of Landsbanki: ICESAVE. And yesterday there was news in the media that the dutch foreign minister, Verhagen, had spoken to Össur Skarphéðinsson, our foreign minister, about just that: That if we closed the Icesave issue, it would SPEED UP our joining EU. This practically confirms what many people have believed was the connection between EU and Icesave. The common public had absolutely nothing whatsoever to do with Icesave, this private debt of Björgólfur Björgólfsson and Björgólfur Guðmundsson. And many fear the outcome of both EU and Icesave: That we the people of Iceland will be forced to pay for this colossal private debt of theirs to the end of our lives. And likely for the sake of joining EU. People started fleeing the country over one half year ago. Those who fled will not have to pay Icesafe. No, this will leave the elders of Iceland to pay this horrible PRIVATE debt of Björgólfur and Björgólfur, ONE OF WHICH NOW LIVES IN BRITAIN.. And the elders will be paying to BRITAIN. So where is the justice?!?
And again, we the Icelandic people did NOT VOTE TO JOIN EU.
Correction: The news about what Verhagen said to Össur Skarphéðinsson came 3 days ago, on 21 July.
Wikipedia info on owners of the PRIVATE debt, Icesave, one who does not live in Iceland, but likely London;
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bj%C3%B6rg%C3%B3lfur_Thor_Bj%C3%B6rg%C3%B3lfsson
ericson09: You accuse the current icelandic PM of corruption, but my good what would you call David Oddson and Geir Haarde then? Protecting their old boys club friends, and almost bankrupting the country in the process. They have singlehandedly demonstrated that Iceland need the EU to provide some adult supervision.
You moan about there not being a referendum before the EU-membership application was submitted, but the application was approved by the democratically elected parliament in Iceland which is responsible for the sometimes difficult long term decisions for Iceland, and there will be a referendum after the negotiations have concluded. It’s not possible to have a referendum before, because the public will not have anything concrete to vote about, only rumors and speculation and scaremongering and propaganda.
Let’s hope for a great result of the negotiations with the EU, specially with regards to fisheries. The EU has an awful track record with regards to fisheries, resulting in an ecological disaster in the Baltic and the North Sea. Cod, our bread and butter, our most important resource for over 1000 years, has been fished to extinction by the EU. Norway and Iceland has managed much better. The EU should acknowledge this, and allow the regions in Iceland and Norway and elsewhere authority over managing their own fisheries resources locally, instead of devastating yet more areas of fishing with their failed common fisheries policies. Yeah, yeah, I know I’m a dreamer, but we’re allowed to hope, aren’t we?
And yes, I agree fully that the UK and NL governments are bullying a small country. Shame on them. No one bullied the US when Lehman Brothers went belly up. But little Iceland is easy to pick on.
Dagoien:
I was not talking about the former government with all it´s mistakes and corruption and do not intend to be forced into discussing irrelevant issues, just so you can side-track my point. Yes, I talked about corruption. The letters are written in black and white for anyone to see. Does it need further explaining? And no, I was NOT moaning like you put it. You are distorting my words. I simply wrote from my point of view. Yes, this is abuse of democracy, yes, this is corruption. You state there will be referendum after the fact?!? Yes, possibly meaningless referendum!. May I remind you the parliament voted on that faitful Thursday, after taking away our right to have referendum before the fact, THAT THE OUTCOME OF THE REFERENDUM AFTER THE FACT WILL NOT BE MANDATORY. NOT MANDATORY. THEY WILL ONLY HAVE TO USE TO OUTCOME AS GUIDING. If you call this democracy you are wilfully distorting the facts. THEY WILL OVERRIDE THE PEOPLES´ WILL IF THEY SO PLEASE. PERIOD. We can look this over, it´s all on tape in althingi.is.
A referendum, should it have said.
And ”use THE outcome as guiding” should it have said.
ericson09: It all depends on what your constitution says about referenda, I guess. Did you know that referenda are formally only guiding here in Norway also? And as you know, we’ve had two such referenda already since 1972. There has been a principle here that the decision to join the EU is such a big decision for the country that nearly all politicians woved to respect the wish of the people and vote in parliament according to the results of the referendum. (Except the rabid anti-EU farmers party senterpartiet, which woved to not respect the wishes of the people and vote against membership in parliament no matter the outcome of the referendum in 1992, while at the same time denouncing the EU for its lack of democracy. Talk of double standards.)
Entering the EU is a big decision for any country. You should demand that your politicians respect the outcome of the referendum and vote accordingly in parliament.
It’s not in the interest of either Iceland or the EU if Iceland joins against the wishes of its people. You see it in the UK where many eurosceptics feel that politicians tricked them into the EU without a proper vote. Actually, my opinion is that the EU should demand a referendum on membership in all candidate countries before accepting that they join. Speaking of referenda: I’m also not impressed about the EU’s lack of referenda over the constitution or joining the eurozone in many member states. It’s bad for democracy. (Sweden held a referendum on joining the eurozone and actually respected the negative result without re-runs etc, even though the result was painful for euroenthusiasts. Kudos to Sweden for that. Democracy first.)
Dagoien:
But Sweden is a part of EU, so I´m not certain what you mean by the following sentence:”Sweden held a referendum on joining the eurozone and actually respected the negative result without re-runs etc, even though the result was painful for euroenthusiasts. Kudos to Sweden for that. Democracy first”. However I do not necessarily expect a fair outcome in Iceland, since this was aggressively forced through in parliament against the will of not only people, but actually against the will of a number of politicians. Did you know that a number (I recall 7 or 8, but will have to look it up) of the members of VG (the far left government party) are and were actually AGAINST Iceland´s joining the EU, both prior to the elections last April and afterward. They made an agreement with Jóhanna Sig. and her totally EU-SIDED political party to side with this for these 2 parties to constitute a government. This is nothing but force on the part of Jóhanna Sig. and her EU-SIDED party. And so, on that fateful Thursday, those 7 or 8 actually stood there in parliament and said they STILL BELIEVED ICELAND WOULD BE BETTER OFF OUTSIDE EU AND VOTED YES. And FIRST parliament had voted against a referendum for the people at this time and voted for ONLY using the outcome of the referendum after the fact as guiding, not mandatory. This is what I call abuse of democracy, politicians both VOTING AGAINST their beliefs and taking away the power of the people. And people are very angry.
ericson09: Yes, Sweden is part of EU, but not part of the monetary union, we still have our own currency. Referenda in Sweden are only guiding referenda as per our constitution. The ruling classes usually solve this by repeating a referendum until the desired outcome is accomplished, but in rare cases, such as the referednum on dismantling nuclear power production in the country, the people´s formally expressed will is simply ignored.
avajadi:
Yes, thank you, this is unbelievable if so, very sad, and then shows us just how democratic those 2 countries are after all. I seriously fear this un-democratic outcome in Iceland. And so now less than 50% of Swedes vote in elections for the European Parliament: http://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/04/27/half-of-swedes-won%E2%80%99t-vote-in-euro-elections/#more-6782
If the Swedish people is given the chance to vote, I would not be surprised if Sweden wanted out of the EU. According to calculations by Ny Framtid, Sweden’s cost of membership in EU is 100 billion kronor. This translates into 10.800 kronor per person each year, or $1.500 per person each year. No wonder that the Swedes want out.
Source: http://www.nyframtid.com/PDF/EUs%20ekonomi%20och%20de%20stora%20kostnaderna.pdf
This EU tax may seem unbelievably high and so I thought at first. However searching for British figures, I found much the same or even higher numbers for Britain. Back in 2006 the newspaper Telegraph reported a very similar figure. They said that British EU membership would cost each of them £837 next year. This translates into 10.200 kronor ($1.375).
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/1527744/EU-membership-to-cost-us-837-each-next-year.html
Since then, I have seen the figure of £1.000, frequently cited. Here however the Telegraph earlier this year quotes from a thrustworthy report, the cost as high as £2.000.
Source: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/4957520/EU-membership-costs-each-Briton-2000-a-year-Taxpayers-Alliance-claims.html
Get out Svenskar, fast !