No side wins EU referendum in Iceland

 

TT-AFP

Published 00.23Updated 09.12

 

From the no side's election vigil last night. The no side won the initially very even referendum on EU negotiations. Photo: Marco Di Marco /AP/TT

Iceland says no to EU negotiations in the country's referendum, reports the public service company Rúv.

The vote count was extremely even for a long time after Iceland's referendum on negotiations for EU membership, but with 52.5 percent the no side wins over the yes side's 47.5, reports the public service company  Rúv.

Rúv thus states that the gap is too large for the yes side to catch up, even though all the votes have not yet been counted.

Just over 270,000 Icelanders are eligible to vote in the election.

The referendum is only advisory and Icelanders are not voting on EU membership directly, but on whether the country should resume the accession negotiations that were put on hold in 2013 by the then Eurosceptic government.

The current government has a more pro-EU stance and the debate in Iceland has changed in step with the world. For example, the country does not have its own military, but relies on its membership in NATO and a bilateral defense agreement with the United States.

But many Icelanders have begun to question the agreement with the United States and are concerned that the American threats to take over Greenland could also be applied to Iceland.

The arguments of the yes side also deal with rising inflation and the US tariff war, while the no side sees EU accession as a loss of the freedom the country has fought for.