Most Icelanders Back Completing EU Accession Talks, Poll Shows

[pampango]

Source: Bloomberg

Most Icelanders want to complete membership talks with the European Union, according to a poll published by Frettabladid.

The poll showed 65.4 percent of voters favor completing the application process, compared with 64.2 in a September poll, the Reykjavik-based newspaper reported today. The number of voters who want the application withdrawn dropped to 34.6 percent from 35.8 in September, Frettabladid said.

Frettabladid polled 800 people on Jan. 19. Of those polled, 87.5 percent answered. The newspaper didn’t provide a margin of error.

Read more: http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2011-01-24/most-icelanders-back-completing-eu-accession-talks-poll-shows.html

[Ian David]

1. I sure hope Robby Rotten doesn't do anything to mess this up.

[DCKit]

2. Geez, what are they thinking? Do they hate their economic recovery that much? nt

[alcina]

3. I was there last week

And I talked with a dozen or so people about this, and all were vehemently opposed to joining the EU. The older (50+) people I spoke with said that Icelanders struggled so long for independence, they'd be foolish to give it up. The younger people usually just said, "Look what happened to Greece!" Now I know that's a small sampling, but most were insistent that it was the politicians, rather than the citizens, who wanted this "quick fix." Only one, older man said he knew people who wanted to join the EU. He also used the phrase "quick fix," and said that younger Icelanders were so used to having a pleasant, fairly easy life, they had no patience for dealing with hardships. And they've been told "by politicians" that joining the EU will solve all their problems. He then followed that up with "Look how it helped Greece!"

On a somewhat related note, I was told Denmark has been running a campaign called "Come back home" to bring Icelandic workers to Denmark. Although everyone I spoke with said they found it immensely offensive, they also said they knew several people who had gone because they could no longer find work in Iceland. Sad.

[DCKit]

4. I figured they were smarter than that.

And yes, the recovery is and will be painful, but they will recover. Especially if they don't get into bed with the EU.

My opinion, but it seems to me that the risks far outweigh the benefits.

[Bobbysox22]

5. They would be fools not to do it.

Iceland is an economic basket-case. They would be lucky if the EU took them.

[DCKit]

6. Iceland took their lumps up-front and refused to bail out their banks.

They will be better off, because of that, in the long run. Iceland is NOT the "I" in "PIGS", that's Ireland.

Iceland's pain is, I'm sure, sharp. However, getting involved with the EU and the string of bad economic decisions that don't seem to have an end, would be far worse - more like a terminal disease.

BTW, welcome to DU.

[Bobbysox22]

8. They should have nationalized the banks, as we should have done.

Public ownership and control of the banking industry is key to creating a rational economy. Unfortunately in the US, we got public ownership without public control. So the bailout was just another subsidy for the rich.

[DCKit]

9. Iceland did, in fact, nationalize the banks. Just not their debt.

Debt that was, at the time of the crash, 6x the GDP of Iceland.

Additionally, whenever anyone tells me "but the poll says", I think of:

[Bobbysox22]

7. This is anecdotal, and your sample is biased, as you admit.

Most Icelanders want to be in the EU. So that's what they should do. Besides, where else are they going to get funding? From the US? I don't think so.