EU FOREIGN ministers have opened the door to Iceland’s future EU accession by calling on the European Commission to assess its fitness to join the union.
They also moved yesterday to relieve concerns among candidate countries in the fragile Balkans region that their own bids to join the union would be pushed back.
“Iceland’s application will be treated by the book, there will be no short-cuts,” said enlargement commissioner Olli Rehn, who is now charged with drawing up the detailed assessment of Iceland’s laws and institutions.
If his assessment is positive formal accession talks could begin next year, although EU diplomats warn the commission report may take months to complete.
Mr Rehn has promised no special treatment for Iceland, but he said the island’s membership of the European Economic Area meant its laws conformed with two-thirds of EU legislation.
“It is already deeply integrated with the EU. The distance still to be covered will be shorter, although not necessarily easier,” said Mr Rehn, who noted talks on fishing, farming and monetary union could prove tricky.
Fishing accounts for 37 per cent of Iceland’s exports and employs 8 per cent of its workforce. Many Icelanders are likely to oppose opening their territorial waters to European fisherman. However, EU sources say it would not be possible to offer Reykjavik a permanent opt-out from the common fisheries policy.
Minister for European Affairs Dick Roche, who attended the meeting in Brussels yesterday, said Ireland strongly supported Iceland’s membership bid and it would be useful to have another fishing nation in the union.
“[We are] two small island nations in the Atlantic with a fair amount of political, cultural and social links through our long history,” said Mr Roche, who also updated ministers on the second referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Ireland hopes to get its guarantees on the treaty ratified by all 27 member states at the same time as they ratify the accession treaty of the next country to be offered EU membership. With the accession talks of candidate states Croatia and the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia stalled due to bilateral disputes with EU members Slovenia and Greece respectively, Iceland may now represent the Government’s best bet of getting its protocol ratified.
Aware of the frustration in the Balkans at the slow pace of EU accession talks, foreign ministers yesterday reiterated their “full support for the European perspective of the western Balkans”. They also promised to consider whether to start accession talks with Albania, which applied to join the EU before Iceland, after the upcoming election in that country.