Majority of Icelanders reject EU membership negotiation proposal

Berlin (ANTARA) - The Icelandic public has rejected the proposal to reopen negotiations for European Union (EU) membership, according to reports from Icelandic public broadcaster RUV on Sunday, citing referendum results that are nearing completion.

Vote counting has concluded in all constituencies except for the Southwest constituency, RUV reported, concluding that from that region, “it appears there will not be enough support gathered to surpass the opposing votes.”

“On that basis, it is clear that Iceland has decided to reject the resumption of the dialogue process for accession to the European Union,” stated RUV.

Preliminary percentages broadcast by national television show that 52.5 per cent of voters rejected EU membership negotiations, with only 47.5 per cent in favour, excluding the final constituency where counting is still underway.

Nationally, 99,037 votes were cast for “no”, while 89,459 voted “yes”, resulting in a difference of 9,578 votes.

It is noted that 32,000 ballots remain to be counted in the Southwest constituency.

For the “yes” option to win the referendum, at least 65 per cent of the uncounted votes, or 57 per cent of the total votes in the Southwest constituency, would need to vote “yes”.

RUV assesses the likelihood of this occurring as very low.

Icelandic citizens participated on Saturday in a highly contested referendum to determine whether their country needs to restart the EU accession process after dialogue was frozen for more than 10 years.

The referendum was not to determine Iceland’s membership in the EU directly.

If the “yes” option had won, the Icelandic government would have received a mandate to restart EU membership negotiations that have been suspended for over a decade.

Nevertheless, even if negotiations successfully reached an agreement for Iceland’s accession to the EU, membership would still require a second referendum.