Friday 17 July 2009

Iceland to apply for EU membership

Carl Bildt responds positively to the news that Iceland is to start negotiations for entry to the European Union.

1 comment:

Eric Dickens said...

Carl Bildt always strikes me as one of the best Swedish politicians when it comes to an awareness of what goes on in especially smaller countries. He was in the vanguard of Baltophiles around 1990, when the Balts wanted to escape the Soviet Union.

In those days, the Icelanders did the Estonians a favour by being the first country in the world to recognise full Estonian independence. The square outside the Estonian Foreign Ministry, once enhanced by a statue of Lenin, was re-dubbed "Islandi väljak" i.e. Iceland Square. Now it may be time for the Estonians to repay the support they then obtained from another small nation.

If the Icelanders can avoid selling too much of their country to the Russians, can go back to ordinary old-fashioned banking, and can square the fishing quotas circle, they would surely, with regard to a European brand of culture, be a very good little country to have in the EU.