1. ICELAND AND THE EU. Yesterday Iceland's prime minister, Johanna
Sigurdardottir, handed in her country's application for EU membership.
Although the Union's Council of Ministers denied that Iceland will get
special treatment, it did agree to pass the application straight to the
Commission, which might produce its opinion in as little as six months.
Iceland thus speeds past Croatia, Macedonia and Turkey in the queue for
membership. Only then, however, will the real bargaining about terms of
membership start. And then there's an advisory referendum in Iceland on
those terms. Accession might happen two years from now at the very earliest.
The negotiations, and the referendum, may not be at all easy for the
government - not least because it is far from united in its
Euro-enthusiasm. Getting a mandate from parliament for the application
was a close-run affair.
The Independence Party, booted into opposition in April's election,
proposed that there should be two referendums, one on the application
itself, another on the terms of membership. That idea won public backing
prior to the vote from MPs representing the Left-Green Movement - which
is in government in coalition with Sigurdardottir's Social Democratic
Alliance. That wasn't so surprising: the coalition parties had agreed to
exempt the EU issue from their parliamentary alliance. But the
double-referendum plan also won support from MPs from the hitherto
pro-EU Citizens Movement. There was speculation that, despite their
agreement, the coalition between the Alliance and the Left-Greens might
be wrecked by a negative vote.
In the end, though, the government's resolution was passed by 33 votes
to 28, with two abstentions. Party discipline was generally weak: MPs
from all five parliamentary parties voted for the application.
As for the public, enthusiasm for EU membership has apparently been
falling, and the polls suggest that supporters and opponents are about
level. With fishing likely to be as contentious an issue as ever,
Iceland's accession is far from certain. Still, the Norwegian
Conservatives, that country's most EU-positive party, has already
sounded keen to use the application to get the issue back on the
political agenda there. They have accused the Labour Party, whose top
figures are nearly all pro-EU, of meekly submitting to its much smaller
coalition partners' Euroscepticism. Pressure has also been put on the
Progress Party to come off the fence on the issue, which the party is
very keen to avoid. Were Iceland to join the Union, the European
Economic Area - the foundation of Norway's relationship to the Union and
its market - would comprise only the EU, Norway and Liechtenstein.
2. PSA CONFERENCE 2009. The call is now out for panel proposals for the
conference in Edinburgh on March 29th to April 1st 2010
(www.psa.ac.uk/2010).
An interesting suggestion has come in from the Italian Politics
Specialist Group and the French Politics and Policy Specialist Group,
which "envisage sponsoring a workshop" on the topic of "Party Leadership
in Western Europe: Strictly Personal?"
Any interest in offering a paper for such a panel (or maybe panels)? Or
any ideas for other, Nordic-related panels? Let me have your thoughts or
requests for more information.
Meanwhile, summer may be winding down in the Nordic countries, but it's
just getting going elsewhere. Whatever, I hope you're enjoying it.
Nick.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Stockholm
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
Please feel free to forward this message to anyone who might be
interested. To join the Scandinavian Politics mailing list, send a
message to me, the convenor (nicholas.aylott@sh.se). If you want to send
something to the list, or if you don't want to receive these occasional
messages, just let me know. See also
www.psa.ac.uk/spgrp/scandinavia/scandinavia.aspx
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