Why Iceland is Not resuming negotiations to join the EU

Very recommendable!

(150) Why Iceland is Not Joining the EU - YouTube

Iceland votes against restarting EU membership talks

Good news! Stay independent of the EU as much as you can!

Population of Iceland about 400,000.

"Iceland has voted against resuming talks on joining the European Union 13 years after they were broken off.

Public broadcaster RUV reported that 52.8% of the more than 225,000 people who voted had rejected the government's proposal, while 47.2% had backed it. Some 12,600 votes separated them.

Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir's centre-left government promised to hold a referendum by 2027, but brought it forward because of international tensions, including US President Donald Trump's threats against Greenland.

However, debate in this island nation of almost 400,000 people centred more on its fishing industry rather than security concerns.

With some 270,000 people eligible to vote, RUV reported the turnout of 82.5% was the highest in any Icelandic election since 2009.

Already part of the EU's single market and Schengen border-free zone, full EU membership would bring Iceland into the customs union and eventually the eurozone currency union. ..."

Iceland votes against restarting EU membership talks

Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir

Iceland's EU referendum at end of August 2026: "No" is a vote for freedom

This will be an interesting referendum! Hope and pray the citizens of Iceland will vote no! Population of Iceland less than 400,000.

"On 29 August 2026, Iceland holds a referendum on whether to renew its 2009 application for membership of the European Union, which was put on hold in 2013.

Iceland is already deeply integrated into Europe through its membership of the European Economic Area (EEA) with Norway, Liechtenstein, and, for all practical purposes, Switzerland, since 1994. Through the EEA, it enjoys access to the Single Market while retaining control of its fisheries, agriculture, foreign trade, and monetary affairs.

Supporters of membership argue, however, that Iceland should join the EU to exert influence over the rules of the Single Market. Opponents counter that this influence would be negligible: 0.8 per cent of the members of Parliament; 0.1 per cent of the vote on most issues in the European Council; one out of 28 commissioners and one out of 28 judges in the Court of Justice of the European Union, both of whom are supposed not to serve the interests of their home country. ..."

Iceland's EU referendum: "No" is a vote for freedom

Flag of Iceland (Source)

What’s it like to grow up in Reykjavík, Iceland?

Recommendable!

Fruit and veg paradise Iceland - Using volcanic energy in farming

Very recommendable! Once more Iceland amazes me! Are you ready for Icelandic chocolate made from locally grown chocolate plants. How about the most northern grown bananas in the world.

However, this video skips over commercial greenhouses in Iceland as is typical for this state run leftist media outlet DW!

The Land of Ice, Fire, and Innovation - Iceland

Recommendable! A legacy of the Vikings! A refuge for the oppressed and enslaved!

"The purpose of [the author's] visit was to talk about why Iceland should or should not join the EU." Iceland better stay out of the EU!

"... Iceland can be considered a creation of entrepreneurs. It was first settled around 874 CE by Norse explorers, primarily from Norway, led by Ingólfr Arnarson, who is traditionally recognized as the island’s first permanent settler. He established his homestead in what is now Reykjavík (“Smoky Bay”), named after the steam rising from nearby hot springs.

Throughout history, the creators have fled the takers—escaping oppression to found new realms of freedom where ideas could multiply and wealth could grow. This is the ancient rhythm of renewal that gave birth to America. The settlers of Iceland were largely Vikings, along with some Celtic slaves (it was typical of the times to enslave defeated peoples) and settlers from the British Isles. Drawn by the island’s fish and grazing land, they sought independence from Norway’s consolidating monarchy.

By 930 CE, the settlers established the Althing, one of the world’s oldest parliaments, at Þingvellir, creating a system of governance where chieftains met annually to settle disputes and make laws. This marked the start of the Icelandic Commonwealth, a decentralized society without a king.

The population grew to around 50,000 by the 11th century, sustained by farming, fishing, and trade. The Commonwealth lasted 332 years, until 1262, when internal conflicts and external pressure from Norway led Iceland to pledge allegiance to the Norwegian crown, ending its independence. This set the stage for centuries of foreign rule, first by Norway and later Denmark. Iceland finally achieved full independence 682 years later, in 1944, establishing the modern Republic of Iceland. ..."

The Land of Ice, Fire, and Innovation - by Gale Pooley "Innovation has served Iceland for 1,150 years. Why change a working recipe?"

One of Iceland’s geothermal bathing pools (Source)

Young Yale alumna Taking the lead in Iceland to return to her alma mater

What a round trip for her!

"In December 2024, 36-year-old Kristrún Frostadóttir ’16MA became the youngest prime minister ever to lead Iceland. She went into politics just four years ago after having trained at the Jackson Institute for Global Affairs, now the Yale Jackson School, and working as an economist. She has been a voice for a welfare state that balances its books, and she has called for free trade in the face of US tariffs.  ..."

Taking the lead | Where They Are Now | Yale Alumni Magazine "How Kristrún Frostadóttir '16MA became Iceland's youngest-ever prime minister."

Frostadóttir MA ’16 returns to Yale Jackson as Iceland’s Prime Minister

The exiled Erik the Red: The 'Most Astonishing’ Chapter In Viking Exploration started in Iceland

Amazing stuff! Perhaps, the oldest parliament in the world, i.e. the Althing, was created by the Vikings on Iceland around 930 AD, where the Eurasia and the American tectonic plates meet. 

Iceland Beautiful PM Kristrún Frostadóttir's Powerful Commitment to NATO and Global Security!

A country without a military, but a founding member of NATO! 😊 She is 37 years old.

Czech Republic to Deploy Swedish Gripen Fighter Jets to Iceland for NATO Air Policing Mission

Amazing stuff! Iceland made it into the news of an Indian news channel! There are rarely ever any news about this tiny iceland with a population of under 400,000.

More evidence a cold spell helped doom the Roman Empire

Yes, the climate on Earth keeps on changing from warm to cold and vice versa over the centuries! Why should it now be different? Because some demagogues or charlatan scientists call it now "human-driven" or even "anthropogenic"?

After the Little Antique Ice Age (from about 536 CE to 660 CE) followed the Medieval Warm Period (from about 950 CE to 1250 CE) and the Little Ice Age (from about 1650 CE to 1850 CE) etc. We all should be happier as it is a little warmer now! 😊

"Historians have long debated the reasons why the Roman Empire—which once stretched across the Mediterranean sea and from northern Africa to the U.K.—collapsed. Recently, some have pointed to a sudden period of cooling called the Late Antique Little Ice Age. This cold spell could have hindered agricultural production, facilitated disease outbreaks, and driven people to migrate. According to a new paper, serendipitously discovered rocks on the shore of Iceland add to the evidence for this chilly period. ...

Analyses indicated that the rocks came from Greenland—most likely carried by icebergs that broke off from the island’s glaciers. The layer of soil the granite rocks were found in dates back to roughly 500 to 700 C.E., which is around the time Rome fell. For so many rocks to have moved at that time, there must have been tons of icebergs, which would occur if cold temperatures were promoting glacier growth.

If that’s the case, the change in climate may have compounded the troubles of an empire that was already in decline. “When it comes to the fall of the Roman empire, this climate shift may have been the straw that broke the camel’s back,” ..."

From the abstract: (I skipped, because the abstract is too technical and narrow focused)

ScienceAdviser

Ancient rocks boost case for mini ice age linked to fall of Rome "Unusual rocks on an Icelandic beach were dropped there by icebergs, adding to evidence that an unusually cool period preceded the collapse of the Roman Empire"

Greenlandic debris in Iceland likely tied to Bond event 1 ice rafting in the Dark Ages (no public access)

Iceland: China’s Trojan Horse in Europe? by Michael Rubin

How China conquers the world one island at a time in the South China Sea/Pacific Ocean, Indian Ocean and in the Atlantic Ocean.

The island of Iceland (a NATO founding member) is strategically located like Guam!

Very clever! Like taken out of the book The Art of War by Sun Tzu.

"... Whereas Bill Clinton, George W. Bush, and Barack Obama saw China as a partner, even if also a “near peer” competitor, Trump recognized China as an enemy and existential threat to the United States. ..."

While Bjarni Benediktsson, a conservative, led Iceland for ten months in 2017 and since April 2024, Iceland’s other prime ministers since 2009 have all hailed from left-of-center parties: Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir, the world’s first openly lesbian head of government, arose from the Social Democratic Alliance. The next two prime ministers, Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson and Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, were progressives. Katrín Jakobsdóttir, prime minister between 2017 and 2024, was chair of the Left-Green Alliance.

Iceland’s China problem began with the 2008 Icelandic financial crisis when the country’s three largest private banks all defaulted sparking what, proportional to Iceland’s size, was the world’s largest banking collapse. A joke at the time asked, “What’s the capital of Iceland?” The answer was not Reykjavik, but rather “25 cents.” ... Sigurðardóttir also sought Chinese assistance after Western countries objected to Russia helping to bailout one of NATO’s founding members. In June 2010, Beijing and Reykjavik agreed to a three-year $500 million currency swap deal to enable Iceland to pay for Chinese imports in the kronur, Iceland’s currency. The two countries subsequently renewed the swap. While Icelandic negotiators said China’s interest and investment in Iceland was to tap Icelandic expertise in geothermal and hydroelectric generation, China’s record in the Atlantic and Arctic suggests Beijing had ulterior motives. ...

While the crisis passed, the Iceland-China relationship continued to solidify with successive Icelandic leaders looking at China as a cash cow. On April 15, 2013, Iceland and China signed a Free Trade Agreement, the first such agreement between China and a European country. The agreement affirmed the rights of Iceland and China to invest directly in the other. For Iceland, this was theoretical; its major exports to China are frozen fish, tin foil, and processed crabmeat. Icelanders pin their hopes on geothermal cooperation, a market they say could translate into more than $11 billion. In 2006, Sinopec, China’s leading energy firm, and an Icelandic company Enex-China partnered to produce geothermal energy for Xianyang, a city of around five million people in central China. The results were mixed ...

China likely sought the ability to build factories in Iceland and both monitor NATO movements and access the Arctic’s strategic minerals represents a major strategic gain. Between 2012 and 2017, Chinese investment in Iceland amounted to almost six percent of Iceland’s gross domestic product, though that percentage fell because of both the COVID pandemic and the China National Offshore Oil Corporation (CNOOC)’s decision to cease exploration off Iceland’s coast.

China’s expansion into Iceland was multifaceted. The Confucius Institutes are a major pillar of Chinese soft power. The Institutes say they provide language lessons and sponsor cultural events, but they promote an exclusively pro-Chinese Communist Party line and often serve as bases to both spy on Chinese abroad and to disrupt events that counter Chinese positions on Tibet, Taiwan, or Tiananmen. As China began to see Iceland as its de facto base in the North Atlantic, it opened the Northern Light Confucius Institute at the University of Iceland. ...

China has sought to establish a strategic position in Iceland in other ways. In 2011, Huang Nubo, a Chinese businessman, sought to buy 100 square miles of land in Iceland in a deal backed by the China Development Bank. While Huang talked up a golf course as the project’s focal point, his plans also included a private airfield.

China proceeded to open a number of supposedly scientific institutions that, much as in Svalbard, enable Chinese intelligence and security deployment to the island under the guise of scientific research. In October 2018, for example, the Polar Research Institute of China and the Icelandic Center for Research opened a joint China Iceland Arctic Research Observatory in Karholl, a small town in northern Iceland. ..."

Iceland: China’s Trojan Horse in Europe? | American Enterprise Institute - AEI

Space-based solar power to be beamed to Iceland by 2030. Really!

Sounds like a really bad idea! Probably unfeasible on a large scale! Mor space junk? How harmless are these power beams?

Why does Iceland even need it? They have already e.g. all the geothermal energy at their disposal.

Is this a popular science article or commercial advertisement? I am afraid it is the latter as the source for this article is a solar power company!

"Solar power holds the promise of clean electricity" Really!!!

"... Since the 1970s, one serious proposal for overcoming the shortcomings of ground-based solar power is to move the collectors off the Earth and into geosynchronous orbit. At an altitude of 22,236 miles (35,786 km), such a power station would remain fixed in the sky in one spot over the Earth where there would be near-continuous sunlight unfiltered by air, clouds, or dust. ..."

Space-based solar power to be beamed to Iceland by 2030 "UK startup Space Solar has signed an agreement with Reykjavik Energy that could see Iceland become the first country to receive power beamed from a space-based solar power plant. The 30-MW demonstrator is scheduled to go online by 2030."

Space Solar and Transition Labs to deliver space-based solar power to Iceland by 2030

Iceland's vertical farm turning algae into food

Very recommendable! Is this the future of agriculture and food? Using geothermal energy?

Global Gender Gap Report 2024 | World Economic Forum

This obsession with parity (50% women) is annoying! Phony DEI is promoted!

In the battle of the sexes men watch out! E.g. is it not curious that the very small share of female employees in the construction and mining industry is never or rarely mentioned? Let men continue to do the sweaty and dirty work!

Or why are not more men working in childcare?

"... Iceland (93.5%) is again ranked 1st and has been leading the index for a decade and a half. It also continues to be the only economy to have closed over 90% of its gender gap. ...
According to LinkedIn data, women’s representation in both science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) and non-STEM workforces has increased since 2016, yet women remain underrepresented in STEM roles, comprising only 28.2% of the STEM workforce compared to 47.3% in non-STEM sectors. ...
Top-level positions remain narrowly accessible for women, globally speaking, illustrated by the global “drop to the top”: in 2024, the ascent from entry level to the C-suite is steeped in a 21.5 percentage-point difference in representation. While women are close to occupying nearly half of entry-level positions, they fall short of representing just one-quarter of C-suite roles. ..."

Global Gender Gap Report 2024 | World Economic Forum

Image of the day

I bet you don't know this laughing, wind blown blonde lady! Ms. Halla Tomasdottir will be the next president of Iceland! And she is a businesswoman.

When will she meet with the newly elected president of Mexico, i.e. Claudia Sheinbaum, for the first time?

Refugees/migrants interrupt a session of Icelandic parliament!

Unfortunately, a very long winded chatty and inconsistent article! Iceland has a population of less than 400,000.

This incident probably shocked the nation!

Here is the core of it:

"... On March 7, a session of the Allting – Iceland’s parliament – was interrupted by three foreign men in the visitors’ gallery who have apparently settled illegally in the country and who, in a language that was clearly not Icelandic, shouted out demands that the government provide them with homes, residency permits, and a right to be joined in Iceland by their families. (If they’re this arrogant when there are so few of them, what would it be like if their relatives – and their relatives, and their relatives – came and joined them ... Reykjavik. It’s a clean, charming city of 120,000 in a remote island country of 370,000, and until recently virtually everybody there was Icelandic. ... the Allting  had actually voted recently to grant residency to 72 people from Gaza who “are already on their way to Iceland by way of Cairo.” ..."

"... Birgir Ármannsson, the President of the Icelandic parliament, had to postpone a parliamentary meeting due to shouting on parliamentary platforms and a man apparently threatening to jump down, at the same time as Minister of Justice Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir introduced a new bill on asylum seekers. ...
There are 759 police officers on the island, 89 of whom have no training in active police work - the low number indicates trust, security and a generally high level of security in the country.  ...
The Althingi, Alþingi, passed an immigration law in March last year which deprives asylum seekers of their right to social housing and free health services 30 days after the application has been rejected. ..."

Islam in…Iceland? | Frontpage Mag

Chaos in Parliament yesterday

Now also in Iceland: Migrants stormed the Parliament

Protesters in the visitor gallery of the Icelandic parliament

European Nations of EFTA to Invest $100 Billion in India in the next 15 years for open Indian market with Palki Sharma

This is huge news! I barely knew that EFTA still exists. India, a rising superpower!

Ambassador of Iceland to the U.S. Visits Mormon Church Headquarters in Salt Lake city

We may call it a match made in heaven? 

The geopolitics of the Mormon church? Even the tiny Scandinavian island of the volcanoes is not unimportant.

Ambassador of Iceland Visits Church Headquarters, Pioneer Memorial Bergdís Ellertsdóttir, Iceland's ambassador to the United States, recently visited Salt Lake City, Utah, where she met with leaders of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and toured Church sites.

The ambassador and the president of the church were holding hands

Scientists Unveil Radical Plan to Drill Into a Volcano For Near-Unlimited Energy (on Iceland). Really!

What a baloney and hype! There are not enough active volcanoes around! Who knows what the environmental impact will be if this were to be exploited and pursued on a large scale.

Perhaps, the less than 400,000 people living on the island of Iceland can benefit from it. For the rest of us not so much!

"...  Magma chambers are notoriously hard to locate ..."

Scientists Unveil Radical Plan to Drill Into a Volcano For Near-Unlimited Energy : ScienceAlert

World's first tunnel to a magma chamber could unleash unlimited energy In Iceland, scientists are planning to drill two boreholes to a reservoir of liquid rock. One will give us our first direct measurements of magma – the other could supercharge geothermal power