The Drop-In
The Reykjavík Grapevine has been published out of down town Reykjavík for more than 20 years, with its offices for most of that time next door to the "World Famous Hot Dog Stand". Every day, people drop-in to our office for various reasons. Sometimes we they tell us interesting stuff that we want to share with you, so we interview them, for your pleasure. There is no theme.
Hosted by: Jón Trausti Sigurðarson & Bart Cameron
The Drop-In
Fear Of A European Iceland: The Upcoming EU Referendum
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The Reykjavík Grapevine has been published in downtown Reykjavík for more than 20 years. For most of that time, its offices have been next door to the "World Famous Hot Dog Stand.” Every day, people drop-in to our office for various reasons. Sometimes they tell us interesting stuff that we want to share with you, so we interview them, for your pleasure. There is no theme.
In this episode we are joined by journalist Elías Þórsson, who wrote The Reykjavík Grapevine’s recent cover feature about the upcoming EU referendum in Iceland.
We begin by discussing the "explosive" rhetoric from anti-EU spokesperson Haraldur Ólafsson, a professor of meteorology at the University of Iceland. He suggested that the passion of the "No" side could potentially lead to acts of terrorism if Iceland were to join the EU.
We then dive into the core of the debate: the practical difference between Iceland’s current status as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA)—which already requires adopting large amounts of EU legislation—and full EU membership. While Iceland enjoys market access through the EEA, the main sticking points for full membership remain fisheries and agriculture, which are excluded from the current agreement. Pro-EU voices argue that joining would grant Iceland a vote and a voice in shaping policies it already follows, and allow for the adoption of the Euro to escape the high cost and instability of the small Icelandic króna.
Our discussion also explores how domestic politics and global security concerns are influencing the debate. High inflation and interest rates historically correlate with greater public willingness to join the EU; however, skepticism about U.S. and NATO reliability, coupled with the government's noticeably ambiguous promotion of the referendum, raises questions about whether the timing is a "set-up to fail." We end by making opposing predictions for the August 29 referendum.
Episode highlights:
02:40 The Explosive Anti-EU Interview & Terrorism Reference
08:41 Clarifying the Referendum: Why the Debate is Just About Talking to the EU
12:58 Fisheries, Agriculture, and the Myth of the Icelandic Sheep
23:07 Pro-EU Case: Sovereignty, A Voice in Brussels, and Fleeing the Króna
26:41 Inflation, Geopolitics, and Why the Timing is Suspicious
30:58 Is The Government Setting Up the EU Referendum to Fail?
54:58 Iceland’s Existential Question: Where Do We Turn for Security?
Hello and welcome to the drop-in, where we here at the regular grapevine talk to people who simply drop into the office, either randomly or like today by request. Today with us is Elias Thorson, who wrote our last cover feature on the uh EU debate. Welcome to the show, Elias. Thank you. And co-hosting with me is the regular grapevine's editor-in-chief, Bart Cameron. Hi Bart. Thank you. My name is Jon. So uh let's get to it. You had an interesting few interviews um during the working of your excessively wrong article, if I may say. Oh not excessively, but very long article.
SPEAKER_00Wow.
SPEAKER_04It's long, but it needed.
SPEAKER_01There's a lot of good quotes there. There's a lot of good stuff that ended up on the editing floor. Yeah. I can I I can I can tell you that.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so I I don't know where to I guess to contextualize there will be a ref referendum in Iceland on uh August 29th, where uh the Icelandic public will vote on not the EU ascension itself, but whether or not to continue negotiations with the EU. Or to start, depending on who you ask. Depending on who who's getting asked that question. Uh so we can look forward to a few months of of a debate uh about whether or not we should restart or start or whatever the the tip uh the um talks with the EU. And to sort of shed light on this, you talk to a few people, a political scientist, uh a pro-EU uh person, and uh and an anti-EU person. Yeah, so and you opened you kind of opened with the interview with the anti-EU person, which is uh a professor of meteorology at the University of Iceland called uh Harutarov. Harald Rosen. Harad Rosen. Who am I actually met on Sunday, which is another story?
SPEAKER_00We we we did we did hang out with Harald on Sunday.
SPEAKER_04He's a he's a nice guy. Yeah, he's he was good. We uh we were at the Norwegian embassy's uh receptions uh because of their independence day on on Sunday.
SPEAKER_00And obviously he taught he taught in Norway.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so he still teaches in Norway. Yeah. So uh should we get into it? Sure. He opened, let's say this was uh uh uh the opening was pretty uh Explosive. Explosive. Um does who who wants to paraphrase the opening here or directly quote it? Do you want to do it, Alias? Do you remember how it went?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um I mean uh I can't I don't think I can recall it verbatim, but so effectively what he is arguing I I mean his whole his whole shtick is that his side is is so passionate about this that they will always win the argument, right? Uh and his point was because his side is so passionate about this and feel this is such an existential issue that although he would never condone violence, he would uh expect uh effectively acts of terrorism uh from his side should Iceland choose to join the European Union.
SPEAKER_00And he referenced a specific uh bombing attempt in Qualf here there that I thought was a fascinating uh footnote in Icelandic history.
SPEAKER_04Uh yeah, I did some I I actually looked that up because I was thinking I don't remember any bombing.
SPEAKER_01No.
SPEAKER_04And no bombs went off. No, but they tried. They tried. So back in 1969, I believe, uh, a bunch of young dudes, basically like teenagers, early 20s, um put up some time bombs in the uh facilities that I'm not sure whether or not they were still at this point uh run by the US Army. But in up in Kvalfir there used to be a submarine base and they had barracks and stuff. So these dudes had made these, you know, created these homemade bombs with time switches on them and planted them in that facility, and these bombs were discovered before the timer went off, so nothing ever happened, and they were eventually tracked down and prosecuted. And I think the funny element of that story was because the the batteries they used for the timers were uh had a label on them from the institutions institution of where they got the batteries, and that was the Icelandic Met office. Wow. Yeah, it was an interesting side story.
SPEAKER_00That's uh it's a it's amusing that the Icelandic Met Office is involved in a 1968 bombing attempt, uh, considering the the bombings that were going on in the United States were done by the weather underground. Yeah. And now we have a weatherman.
SPEAKER_01I mean Harold was on our TV screens for years and years, giving us the weather report.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, he was a weatherman. So a storm is brewing. Um weather plots. Yeah, that's very good. Of uh political war in a uh gathering.
SPEAKER_00I would say I would say political passions are high throughout the country at the moment. And um so the anti-EU factions speak in ways that would not be acceptable. And then I was so worried when I read Harold's quotes that we um followed up just to make sure that we're gonna run these in print. Um because I felt like this could I knew that the reaction would not be um would not be muted. Like it's just not a community that accepts threats of terrorism. Are there any? No. Are there are there any historically?
SPEAKER_01No, no, any any countries that accept threats of terrorists.
SPEAKER_00Um the country from which I'm a citizen, uh maybe that that kind of uh rhetoric is is somehow acceptable there now.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, I I don't know, maybe, maybe. You you would know better than me.
SPEAKER_04But uh uh I think uh well well like there are two things I would like to mention here, like before we get dive into the story, which is like happened around the story. First of all, you were uh worried that these these comments might get us into trouble, and you asked me, being the publisher and poorly trained lawyer I am, uh whether or not these would probably be problematic. And I pointed out to you that uh alias had sent uh the comments because I I assume the interview is conducted in Icelandic. So what we tend to do here is to send the comments once they've been translated to the interviewee and uh check if they have any anything they think is misrepresented. And he did not, instead, he took the most uh flammatory parts of the comments he made and made them all caps for emphasis. So I pointed out that that would not be a problem. Uh he he it was pretty uh just remember reading this and just couldn't believe it. It was pretty clear what uh what had been said and everybody was happy about that. And then just prior to us being uh getting around to it on uh publication date to actually uploading the article, uh the local news outlet and Iceland's most popular news set, VC.ios, had picked up on those comments and and uh they went modestly at least viral during the weekend.
SPEAKER_00Modestly viral.
SPEAKER_04I'm being modest.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But uh back to the actual story, like we're very many people who um whose kind of like job or not necessarily job, but lifestyle has been to kind of follow follow the political discourse in Iceland. They're not looking have not been looking forward to this debate. Uh um Miti personally Ital Kazun is one of them. He's kind of stated that he'd like to stay out of the country while this goes down because he's uh he can't deal with the uh and I'm paraphrasing now, the dumb shit that's about to hit us all. Um shitstorm? The shitstorm, yeah. The the clouds of shit storms gathering. Um but you you you were making an honest attempt of trying to like clarify what the debate is. Um could you elaborate a little bit about that in a sense? Because it's kind of peculiar, I guess, for the foreign audience that we're actually not talking about, like we just said, whether or not we're joining the EU. We're just talking about taking the step of actually figuring out what the deal would be, whether or not like if we were to join, uh, which the people who are pro-EU say, like, you know, let's figure out what's in the quote unquote package. And whereas the anti-EU people seem to just want to muddle this all up to g in into one thing, which is like we're just not joining the EU, period, and we show we shouldn't spend money or time on on even thinking about this.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Which becomes extremely complicated, as we noted. So one of the things that wasn't in the article is we all joined together and went to the press conference for where the EU and the uh Minister of Fisheries was was discussing what what special arrangement Iceland's gonna have with the EU on fishing. I mean, uh uh meeting with the EU is is is gonna be required just to keep the economy afloat because that's the biggest um buyer of our exports. Yeah, it's the biggest economy we can deal with on a reliable basis now, especially with the recent changes uh to the um to the West.
SPEAKER_01I mean, and and I mean it's uh it it it is a strange, complicated, yet also at the same time seemingly simple debate. I think both sides, this is my personal opinion on this, both sides are are going a bit overboard on this uh because we are a part of the European internal market, right? You know, since for for 30 years we have been a part of the European economic area. So so many of these regulations, whatnot that we have here nice come directly from the European Union. That's just requirements we have in order for us to have access to the markets.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we should probably explain to our international audience what the EEA or the European Economic Area is. Yeah. It is a halfway house into the EU. It it it uh uh it allows us to operate on that market, it requires us to adopt a whole series of regulations in specific sectors or many sectors, and by this point the members of this halfway house to the EU are us, Norway, and a place called Liechtenstein, which is a tiny, I guess, German-speaking principality in the in the middle of Europe.
SPEAKER_01In one in like a like a valley.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. So that's the A. Yeah. So that's true. We are we are in this halfway house. We have adopted um an amazing amount of EU legislation over the past 30 years.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04And for all intents and purposes, in many, almost most of our sectors, we are almost fully adapted to the EU area. So that's one thing.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, so so then that's why I I feel like both sides need to maybe calm down a bit. Um, because that's the fact of the matter. So for those that are pro-EU, you have to go. I mean, to you have to ask both these sides. Is this really such a big change? Do you know what I mean? Like for the pro-EU people, like why is this so necessary? For the anti-EU people, like why is this such an existential threat to democracy and freedom or or whatever, you know?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so uh in essence, like what is the actual difference between being an EEA member and an EU member for our sovereign sovereignty or any other things that have to do with our economy or our security or what whatnot.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, exactly. And and you know, when I was writing this, like you said, it's it's it's a very long article. But it could easily have been a lot longer. Um I don't really dive that much into the agriculture thing. No. It's it's a complicated topic as well. But but that this is like the I think the main sticking point is is that in the original EE agreement, fisheries and agriculture are not part of it. So so that's the the worry that some people have. And kind of the sticking points, I guess.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. Uh and we're of course speaking inside Reykjavik, right? So how much the local Reykjavik uh crowd cares about agriculture and fisheries? Uh I I mean, Reykjavik.
SPEAKER_01Reykjavik is Iceland's biggest fishing port. So the fishing industry lives here.
SPEAKER_00And so do the quotas probably all live here at this point.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Uh well, a lot of it. Um, I mean I I I can't tell you though about the agriculture thing. Um so in my day job, um, I write about the Arctic extensively. And what what's interesting is, you know, due to our location, this far north, um, and you compare it to other regions in northern Sweden and Finland, it's very likely our agriculture would financially benefit from this because we would have access to all kinds of like periphery agricultural grants and you know Arctic uh adjacent money. Um so I don't even I don't even know if the agriculture would you know I I think this might benefit it in in in some sense.
SPEAKER_04I think I think they're generally also due to the well due to various factors, but you know, some aspects of like especially smaller farmers, their outlook is pretty dire at this point within the current system. Perhaps the sort of larger dairy farms do okay, but the small time farms have been struggling for decades.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but and but that's like a like I don't I don't understand agriculture. It confuses me. Like everyone eats, yet every single farmer in the world seems to be struggling financially. Still, still like every government is like pumping subsidies into this industry. It it it really i I find this to be the most confusing industry in that regard in the world.
SPEAKER_04I I think in in at core, I could I would phrase it like this over the Western world, uh we on the face of it as consumers pay a fairly low amount of money for the food we consume. But we pay taxes, which then subsidize the farmers. So instead of seeing the price of food up front, we're just getting it sort of in a back-ended way from taxing. That's kind of how it works because that's that's essentially what it is.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah. I mean the Icelandic government I think it's in I I looked this up the other day. I think direct grants it's like forty billion Icelandic a year that goes directly to farmers.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and and and you know, if if it were were more of a less sort of government-infused industry, we would either not have farming or the produce we have would be probably twice or thrice more expensive. Yeah. And we would just have to live with that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But so farming in Iceland is is is is is in a is in a weird place, I think. And moving into Brussels, you know, the the regulatory body, I guess, there we would need to open up some specific tolls.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we would actually get to eat more of foreign cheese, I guess.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, we could get like feta cheese again.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, that would be fun.
SPEAKER_01We don't have that. You know that part, right? I I'm very fond of Icelandic cheeses. Yeah, we had but we had like a fake feta. Yeah. And then the Greek people made us stop calling it feta. Yeah, no, we can't. Yeah. We still have fake mozzarella. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00I have I have a great affection for it.
SPEAKER_01The Italians haven't caught on yet.
SPEAKER_00I took a 20-year break, and in the in the break when I was away from Iceland, you started accepting foreign meat. When I loved you before the foreign meat was barred, and I was actually a fan of that. Uh I don't know. Uh they were they were building the agri they kept the agriculture here um sustainable.
SPEAKER_01The meat the meat thing I think, you know, be because doing this story, what I what I think becomes clear and I hope comes through in the piece is uh this is is a tie into your meat your Athletic meat thing. Yeah, yeah. So effectively you have kind of technocratic thinking regarding bureaucracy, uh regarding you know, currency, interest rate, blah blah blah. And then you have this very emotional argument based in I I in many ways, I think the myth of Iceland, which is one thing that I think exemplifies that more than anything else, which is the Icelandic sheep. You know, that is the like mythlocker in their logo should not be a horse, it should be it should be a sheep. It should be the Icelandic sheep. Yeah, yeah. Uh at the side of a highway somewhere. You know, that that that that that's what I think is quintessential Iceland. And so this debate about the agriculture, I think it's all has a lot to do with this. The it's the idea of Iceland. The idea of Icelandicness, you know, based around the 1944 independence, the struggle against the Danes, la la law.
SPEAKER_04I think it's interesting in that perspective, coming to like addressing the agriculture, that for the longest time uh the sheep population in Iceland was larger than the human population.
SPEAKER_00No longer true.
SPEAKER_04This is no longer true, as of two years ago, I think, where sheep fell below 400,000 and we kinda hit that line. In the late 70s, there were like almost a million and a half sheep here, and I guess the population was at 250,000. And then you see it in the numbers, uh, our consumption of uh lamb has dropped like s magnificently over the past 25 years or or ever since you were living here. And we now subside much more on on on meats such as chicken and pigs, which uh traditionally weren't big uh uh protein intakes here. So we've we've like our as as consumers we've shifted to much to m more towards international trends than than just twenty-five years ago. So that has definitely morphed the way our uh farming works in a sense. Uh so you see it in the numbers and you also see it in the the livelihood outlook of the sheep farmers, which are kind of dire.
SPEAKER_01Sure. And and uh I think the same for the fishing industry. Uh it's it's a very different world than it was when we joined the EEA.
SPEAKER_00In many ways. In in so many ways. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Like temperatures. Uh uh You know, because earlier we were talking about Bippi Mortens and how he used to be at Verat Booth, which was like this kind of dormitory fist factory.
SPEAKER_04Uh migrant fish worker.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. You would have these like in Westmaner in Polungovic and these small towns around the country, young people come, stay in dormitories, and then work in the fish factory. A lot of these fish fish factories don't exist anymore. They've either been moved to lower wage areas like uh the Baltics, Poland, Poland, or or they're being done on board the fishing vessels. So this is a massive change in regards to the economic impact of the fishing industry on Iceland. So I and I think it's a valid question regarding who owns the quota. Like what what would really change?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, so we so we could kind of establish that we while we do not know how the agriculture would look within like within the EU. We just know that agriculture isn't doing great and things have changed a lot. So it might actually be potentially a net benefit for the agriculture industry.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, but it could be, and and that that's the whole thing about this this referendum, right?
SPEAKER_04And and then uh to find out. And then we have the fisheries, which is admittedly a way bigger industry in Iceland, traditionally the biggest one, but hasn't been for the past decade or so, not since tourism superseded it. But there we have uh a large part of the economy, uh much more sort of uh you know, we see profits, it's it's has a larger impact on GDP. Uh it does uh compared to the era you're c uh talking about, it doesn't employ probably as many people as it did, and it's become much more technical technologically advanced, and we eat less fish than we used to. But this is where the money is, these are also where all the big money interests are. And it's kind of ambiguous depending on whom you ask. Some people in the fisheries kinda are not too negative about them, but most are negative about joining the EU. But this is kind of this I guess this is at the end of the day the sticking point. If we're thinking about this logically.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But but again, like talking to like Haraldur, this isn't really what he was focusing on. No, it was more an identity thing. Yes. And like when I was talking to Magnus, who was in the R.
SPEAKER_00We haven't brought up yet because he didn't he didn't mention violence. No. This was the great difficulty editing the pieces.
SPEAKER_01This is the uh so the pro-EU guy Magnus. Yeah, this is the attention economy, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, you can't when something's brought up violence, it's hard to tell the piece after that. But uh Matt Magnus's patronym was Magnus Kult.
SPEAKER_01I'm sorry, Magnus, I forget your patronym. But anyway, uh yeah, so so talking to him, that was a lot more the kind of focus. It was on the euro.
SPEAKER_00He had a fascinating quote. He pointed out that uh, you know, we're in the European economic area and uh but we have no control over kind of policies where you j you get into the EU and you can start voting. And you treated a little bit, you know, why not shape the policies you're following? And I think that's very reasonable.
unknownTrevor Burrus, Jr.
SPEAKER_01It it is, but uh again, you know, people who are anti-EU membership would say, well, we're only gonna get like what five seats or something in the European Parliament and da da da.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, we're so small that you know the fact that we don't really have a voice right now uh doesn't really matter because we won't really have we're going to have the like quietest the most quiet voice in the EU Parliament.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. Which which is still like uh I think that's also a voice. Yeah. And I and I think it's also misunderstanding how the European Parliament works. Yeah. De facto, because most of it is just like these blocks that have nothing to do with where people f are from, really. It's more like here's the right wing, here's the left wing, and they're kind of fighting it out in the European Parliament. But I I think it's it's possible, and this is again something that wouldn't we've needed to discuss with the EU, because we're such a massive fishing country and we have such expertise and you know, we've made so many technological advancements, etc. I think the EU would value the expertise they could get from here. I'm I'm pretty sure of it.
SPEAKER_00This is well, this is what we were told at the press conference a few weeks ago.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly. Um so but but again, you know, the the that that that was again something interesting in this is like Mark Nose, he's talking about this. This is what he's talking about. He wants the euro. You know, interest rates are high.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, it's something we haven't mentioned yet. But yeah. Yeah. But the fear is that if you could get out of the uh out of having your own currency and having to stabilize your own currency. I mean, there's a huge investment into running your own currency. And especially for a country this size, you're talking a large portion of your GDP is just having backup currency in a vault to keep this thing going. Uh we joked about, we made an ironic okay. I used the Alanis Morris definition of ironic, meaning just silly. But anyway, we just made a silly euro coin for our cover. But fleeing the kroner just financially kind of is comforting to a lot of people.
SPEAKER_01It it is. It is. Uh and and I I I definitely think there's an argument to be made there. Um but but but again, like the krona is is this is again, it's kind of where this is gets kind of muddled in the where the factual discourse gets mixed in with this emotional reaction. You know, we want to have you know, we wanna have Icelandic dudes on our money.
SPEAKER_00On our money that's called crowns in a country that has no king, but yeah.
SPEAKER_01Yeah yeah, but but we have we have you know crowna is also, you know. Corona, krona. I don't know.
SPEAKER_04No, but it's it it is uh it is a fact that we spent a lot of money to back up our one of the world's smallest currencies.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, isn't it like what is it, a thousand billion or something? It's ridiculous.
SPEAKER_04It's a yeah, it's a stupid amount of money. Yeah, it's a lot of money sitting around doing precious little uh and that's definitely a point. And I mean there are back and like there are all sorts of sides to the coin issue, I guess. Like, you know, is it good or bad to have uh an independent economy during booms and busts, uh independent currency during booms and busts, and all those things. But uh I kind of want to kind of steer this into maybe we should end with it, but you know, stop me if if so. But the if you look at polls over the past years on whether or not Icelanders overall are interested in joining the EU, you can almost like there's a correlatory line between that and the interest rates or the inflation in the country at the time of the poll. The higher the interest rates and or the um inflation, the more uh more positive is the Icelandic um population towards joining the EU. And currently we are having inflation problems. We've been having inflation problems for uh more or less since COVID. And the new well, the year and a half old government now has uh not been able to control that properly and it's still raging and we might even be looking at um problems in the fall, such as that the uh collective bargaining agreements are all hinged on uh uh what the interest rates or the inflation is, and those might all just simply dissolve in the fall, which would be uh ma m uh a gigantic problem in renegotiating uh payments for a large sector of society during an inflationary period. This is gonna create more inflation. This will create more inflation, probably. Uh but at the same time, like, you know, and and I think we see collective bargaining agreements because everybody here is in a union.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04Something we should disclose that.
SPEAKER_00Foreign uh viewers wouldn't understand.
SPEAKER_04But with that in mind, you know, this the hist like history would tell us like, okay, the economy is doing pretty bad. By August, people would then probably vote for at least reassuming uh the ascension talks or the the uh the joining talks. But at the same time, we just had municipality elections and we show saw a bit of a right-wing swing there. Uh and I don't think the two of us agree on this, but let's talk about it a bit. There's also there's been a few l legislations in the past year and a half by the new government that have been somewhat unpopular. Uh I think the most unpopular piece of legislation is the uh the mileage uh tax on on driving in Iceland, where uh you know, because less and less people now use fossil fuels and those were just taxed, and it was simple, and you use the money to fix roads. When you don't have that, they've imposed a tax on how much you drive. So you have to every month you have to disclose how many kilometers you have driven and you get taxed appropriately. Highly unpopular. Um I'm pondering like whether or not there is a bit of a mood shift here, and this is because rejoining the EU or rejoin rejoining the talks is a government uh program. If the tide is turning against the government, will that pro potentially affect the referendum in August? Are we less likely to see people willing to see what it is in the package because they're just simply pissed off?
SPEAKER_01I I I I think that could definitely happen. Um and you know, last time I was here we were discussing my interview with Christopher, the Prime Minister. And I and I wrote that in that piece how when I asked her about this is before they announced the referendum. And she didn't really seem to me to be that enthusiastic about this. Uh so I wonder just how much Sam Filkinkin, the Social Democrats, are actually pushing for this and how much is just this was a requirement that Viderist put in when you know they decided to form a government. Like how how much was this a requirement of theirs? Because I I I don't really see so so this this is the weird thing about this, is that the government puts this forward, plans this referendum. But I mean I I can ask you, like how much of a push do you see from the government to get people to vote yes on this?
SPEAKER_04Well that's the thing. I mean it's it's it's happening right after summer. Usually there's a parliamentary recess, there will be. Uh the politicians go on holiday. They're not gonna be in the media much. Uh based on what you were saying about and your interview with with uh Christroun, it doesn't seem like that political party is gonna put a lot of effort into talking up the you know, saying yes to the referendum. Uh the People's Party, the third party in the coalition, is uh uh at best ambiguous about supporting it.
SPEAKER_01I mean fifty percent of their voters say yes, fifty percent say no.
SPEAKER_04Whatever voters they have left actually, given their their current polling numbers. And that leaves uh Thorkire Katrines, the Foreign Ministers Party, Vidalist, or Reform Party, whatever the hell we call it. Uh and I have a hard time seeing them having enough airtime or whatever in the discourse this summer when everybody's busy camping or drinking beer in the countryside to actually affect the discourse that much, given what whatever discourse will be. Yeah. It's an interesting you start kind of pondering like based on the timing of this, is this like set up to fail?
SPEAKER_01No, I I I don't think so. Uh I I like I said, I think I think this is you have one government party that is all in on this.
SPEAKER_00That's Vidros.
SPEAKER_01You you have yeah, and you have Sanford Kingkin who is ambiguous. Technically pro, yeah, but you don't really feel it.
SPEAKER_04No, they're not gonna like they're not gonna make their themselves or their political livelihoods hinged on this.
SPEAKER_00I gotta be honest, so because we've been covering Sanford Kiking uh a lot recently, and we we just went to every election night party and talked to every government official we could, and the amount of engagement we got on from sample kicking on any issue was negligible. I don't know what's going on with that party, but on the in the municipal elections that was a disaster. And I think that was a disaster because the messaging, there was no messaging. If you compare them to the socialist party, just for example, I mean there in in three minutes with the socialist party leader, you get more than 20 minutes with anybody from sample kicking. And I know it's easy to be pro-socialist or make a easy uh uh policy statement with a socialist party, but sample kicking should be able to make a policy statement and they can't. And their their turn to easy gimmicks is alarming. And um I've just the Prince Polo story that they bounced back right before as like as though that was gonna swing the elections. It's I don't know what they're doing, and I wish, you know, we have the saying, my kid has the saying, you know, cringe is forever. They're stuck in cringe, and it's not, they're not pulling out of it. And if they can get to an issue, even if it if they want to say what they like you said, you asked them about the EU, and they're non-committal. I feel like they're non-committal on almost everything other than keep us in because to keep the bad guys out. And that's not a campaign, uh that's not a party platform you can run a country with.
SPEAKER_01Well, sure. But I I think we need to be very careful thinking about these municipal elections in terms of these kind of grant terms.
SPEAKER_00Well, Christian was so much involved in the municipal election.
SPEAKER_01She she so you put a weirdly amount uh a lot of m political capital into this. I've never I don't remember seeing a prime minister be this involved in municipal elections? No.
SPEAKER_00Not overtly, no. I mean when David went to visit um Einar at the City Hall, when Aynar was was mayor, he said it was his first time entering City Hall, right? Since he was mayor. Since he was mayor.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But yeah, but uh that's not even like when you're when they're campaigning uh and she's an active prime minister. But you I I I think I'm not lying here when I say I think San Fehingen has never had more um m municipally you know elected officials in the country.
SPEAKER_00Than they do now.
SPEAKER_01Than they do now. So so but here in Reykjavik. You you have to think about it this way. So San Velgin has been in the majority for sixteen years. People are unhappy about a lot of things. Uh what what and what San Velgingen did, now I think this was their strategy, I think it was a weird one, was basically because they switched out who was the head of their party. Right. They were trying to dis distance themselves more from from from what they had have been doing over the past sixteen years, then talk it up, which I thought was very strange. And then you had parties like Vidres, which I felt was just effectively throwing them under the bus. Oh, yeah. Which was really strange to me. Like these are government coalition parties. Vidres has been as much of a part of the majority here for a number of years. Yeah. So you you you had this kind of weird, you know, you have like this political novice in uh leading the party, you have a very unpopular, you know, mayor that that nobody voted for as mayor because obviously she just took the first spot after Dagur left to go to parliament.
SPEAKER_00I see, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01So so I think reading into this, we need to be a bit careful here, right? Then you have the Pirate Party, which is which is just which is just you know, sadly, you know, for them, it's just gone, I think, at this point.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no.
SPEAKER_04No, uh no, they've uh so essentially what you're describing is that everybody who has been a part of the ruling coalition in the city since twenty ten, including the biggest party and the only continuous party of that coalition, which is the Social Democrats, were basically throwing whatever they were doing in the past sixteen years under the bus in attempt to like gain votes. Yeah, that's which means that everybody who was running this year were actually trying to like kick the the former coalition in the in the gut on the way out.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, that was my that was how I saw it. Yeah, yeah. I think you're not wrong. And and I think I think it's also like how much of the the mayor did you see on the campaign trail? Not at all. Yeah. Isn't that strange? Isn't that weird?
SPEAKER_04That is quite weird. And uh but it's uh it it it's obviously like if you're uh if you've been in the opposition, like the Independence Party, it's an easy thing to do. But obviously if you are the party that was if you are the the uh social terms, it's an awkward position to put yourself in.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I and I think for I mean obviously municipal elections, it's it's a bit strange, it's different from national one, but like 16 years in power it's a long time in in 21st century West, really weird.
SPEAKER_04It never happens. No, and if you look at the if you go past that, I mean the city of Reykjavik was run exclusively by the Independence Party until 1994, I think, more or less, when a left coalition took over. And that has been the ruling coalition in Reykjavik, if you skip four years between 2006 and 2010, for then 30 what two years. Yeah.
SPEAKER_00Well, what happened then Between 2006 and 2010 is pretty alarming.
SPEAKER_01It was I mean, I think without a doubt, those four years were the craziest time between the It was crazier when that than when the best party took over. It was mad. Like the best party was the joke to fix the the actual joke.
SPEAKER_04Yeah. No, it was mad. Uh but we we digress here.
SPEAKER_00We're we've we're we've got we're saying my view is probably skewed by by being so locked in the ranking.
SPEAKER_01My point is you know, people are trying to make this into some kind of a grand statement on this or that, on the government, on the EU. I I don't I don't see it that way. No. I I really don't.
SPEAKER_00And they're still three months away from before the referendum anyway, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh I but I think the the problem with this municipal election and the EU election is that they're way too close together. Yeah. I think, you know, ideally we should have been talking about the EU thing when we're talking about the municipal thing, or not have the EU thing in in the background when we're talking about the municipal elections. Having this so close was a mistake, I think clearly. But I think what is driving the timing is, you know, the the the the elephant across the pond.
SPEAKER_00Right, right.
SPEAKER_01Uh and and this is I come into the Are we talking about the Faroe Islands? Yeah, yes, yes, yeah, yes.
SPEAKER_04I think his name is some other uh Atlantic Ocean associated uh or former colony.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, because the I I talk about this in the article, which is you know, I was talking uh me and Ole Hardar, my my good friend who's the political scientist I interviewed for this piece. We we need to give him a shout-out. Yeah. Great guy, always wearing shorts. Um I admire him coffee. I I admire that man so much. He's uh he's a great guy. Great guy, always fun to talk to. But which is you know, when we started this originally 16 years ago, 17 years ago, when the then social democrat-led government following the financial crisis applied for the for EU membership to begin with, then it was very much on these notes that we have already discussed. Yeah, but now you have this new dimension that we didn't have back then, yeah, which is the global security aspect of this. Because now we I think every reasonable person needs to wonder what is gonna happen to NATO, what is gonna happen to the US, what does that mean for Iceland? Iceland's sovereignty, Iceland's foreign policy, uh security has all been based on two things. The 1951 bilateral agreement with the United States and NATO. Now, people worry would the US honor its guarantees to Iceland? What is the US doing in Greenland? What would that mean for us? Right. Like let's say, you know, I this again, this is something I write about extensively in my day job. This is what is happening in Greenland. Like now the US is demanding three sovereign territories within Greenland. Which is like I don't I don't know what that means.
SPEAKER_00As we've often talked about, most of the policies they say about Greenland, the logic applies to Iceland as well as it does Greenland.
SPEAKER_04I thought like I was under the impression, given how the US like 'cause they have a military base in Greenland and they have, according to to their bilateral agreement with Denmark, which with regards to Gre Greenland, uh a right to build more of them if they want, or have more military presence. When there was a US base in Iceland in Kepler Vic until 2006, uh Iceland in laws didn't really apply on the base. Like they kinda had their own sovereignty there, to an extent.
SPEAKER_03Well to an extent.
SPEAKER_04But it's not the same thing. But they had a lot of control over like public policing crime.
SPEAKER_01No, I guess not. You know what I mean? But but yes, so it and and I uh but my point being I I think nervousness about geopolitical tensions pushed the timeline up a bit for the government.
SPEAKER_04I I suspect also that if they're being very savvy, they were thinking that we should have this referendum before we have midterms in the US, because the midterms in the US really go the way of the Democrats. Maybe people will like worry less about the geopolitical s situation if they believe Donald Trump has become a lame talk president.
SPEAKER_01And that might be a part of the thought? It's it's possible. I ha I hadn't thought about it that way, but it it's a lot of it.
SPEAKER_04But at the same time you think about these things and and if you look at the ra uh the at the polling that was being done late last year and early this year, and the difference between late last near year and early this year was that early this year Greenland was on the menu for a while and it was in the news cycle and it was nothing else was being discussed, not only here but globally almost. And if you look at the poll numbers, the uh uh uh The willingness to to restart the negotiations with the EU actually went down when the rhetoric of Donald Trump was as at his highest compared to before the new year. Which is also interesting because you would have thought like the more unstable the world seems, the less the more likely Icelanders are to be interested in the EU. But that didn't like unlike the inflationary numbers, that didn't really correlate, which is interesting.
SPEAKER_00I think uh Iceland's unique history from the Cold War may play into this discussion kind of. I spent yesterday with Animar Guthmans and we were talking about how kids his age, so he's a little bit over 70, used to uh enjoy the benefits of both Russia and the United States and how they played against each other. And Iceland's great spot in in the middle of the Cold War uh led to a lot of advantages, and they're used to playing other people off each other. And so now maybe an older generation believes you can play the EU off of the US and enjoy by as long as you don't declare one allegiance, you get you get the benefits of both. I'm not sure that time is still possible.
SPEAKER_04I think maybe because we had eighty years where, you know, and part of that fifty years of that to the Cold War, where you know, we we trusted the US for our security, we're a part of NATO, but we were still able to and allowed to and willing to do massive trade deals with the Soviet Union, floating the country with lattas and and whatnot. Delightful cars. Delightful cars. Uh if you have strong arms to stay in. I I believe maybe we've as like a collectively, I think don't think we may have gotten the fact that this is not the situation we are in now. Being sort of like in the middle, enjoying sort of best of both worlds, lattas and Coca-Cola, is not perhaps an option anymore. And we've grown so accustomed to being able to kind of freeload in that sense, the way we have, that we don't believe that this that era may be over, and that may influence how we're sort of viewing the EU and whether or not to join it. We still believe we can just go our own way sitting in the middle of the North Atlantic and you know, both have our cake and eat it, which I don't think is true anymore. But I don't think either that this aspect of the discussion or the discourse has kind of dawned on the majority of Icelanders.
SPEAKER_01I think that's definitely true. Um I th I think there's always this element of this kind of institutional inertia um when you have these paradigm shifts. Like I I I did my my studies in in Denmark and you know did a master's in political science. And I have laughed so hard, sorry to say my Danish friends, at how the Danish institutions have been dealing with this paradigm shift of having uh basically a belligerent US because their foreign policy, much like ours, has been based completely on this fundamental truth, which is the Americans are our best friends and they will take care of us. So that's why Denmark like followed the US into every nonsensical operation, military operation around the world.
SPEAKER_00Like they were talking some more important recent ones. Obviously, they lost people in Iraq and Afghanistan, especially in Afghanistan.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and they were part of the bombings of Libya, like you know, obviously, you know, before that they were in Kosovo and you know Yugoslavia. So when they have to deal with a United States that wants to annex their territories, what was funny to me was to watch the academics, the politicians, um the diplomats, the technocrats, and the public just trying to wrap their brain around what is happening.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Because they they couldn't get it. Like why is this happening? Why is this happening? Why aren't things the same? And and you know, obviously we have not had to deal with America that's being belligerent towards us. Like Donald Trump, I mean, he's mentioned us, but he mentioned us double.
SPEAKER_04Yeah uh countries.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, yeah, yeah. I I think that's safe to say he w he didn't mean Iceland when he said Iceland. Uh four times when he said it four times. Four times, yes. But but so we have not had to face this change, this uh end of the post-World War II order, or whatever you want to call it. We haven't had to face that directly in this sense. So I that's why I think it's uh it's harder for people to think in those terms. Um you know I think people want to believe that the Americans are our friends. They want to believe that NATO is a stable organization, that you know, we can continue to count on uh uh that being the framework for national security. But I I I I I I think we we we need to at least consider that that might not be the case forever.
SPEAKER_04No, I think I mean there when it comes to international trade and security it seems that people with in in charge who have foresight are already starting to do as much security and trading diversification as possible. I mean, I think the most famous case is Canada, whose whose rhetoric represents that. And it's been uh it's been hard to I guess the problem is like I I I wonder what the view is in Canada with the Canadian public. But if your politicians are speaking that way, I think that seeps into the sort of national psyche. You kinda you start under getting the point that things are changing, you have to like shift. But that has not in many cases been the same in Western Europe, including Iceland. No, and more sort of like ostrich metaphor.
SPEAKER_00There's not a lot of Mark Kearney's out there saying?
SPEAKER_04No. And there's not a lot of sort of at least explicit realism uh in in how people or politicians talk about these things.
SPEAKER_00And they're not talking and and when they don't talk, they're met with revulsion by the public. I'm saying talking about Keir Starmer and and this people hit the recent reaction there. I think I think those of us are that are watching politicians afraid to speak publicly about sovereignty, it's gonna result in some unfortunate side effects. Somehow with with the UK it might result in might result in reform reform party, not not not which is you know, yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Uh but to this point, actually, I was just thinking about this now, which is kind of interesting. Like Christroun, our Prime Minister. Yeah. This hasn't been really been in the news much. You kind of have to go to the press releases of the the government. But been signing all kinds of treaties with Germany and France and whatnot. You know, security related things and with the Nordic countries. Right. So I think she's clearly thinking in these terms of like, oh, we need Europe to help with our security. Absolutely. Which then makes this w what uh seemingly her being kinda wishy-washy about pushing for the EU a bit stranger.
SPEAKER_04Yes. But I think that's the thing about that that's kind of what bothers me about these things, which is I have a sense that uh under the surface, most political leaders in the Western world are doing exactly that. They are doing the diversification thing with with regards to security, business, whatever. But they're not um making their population sort of accustomed to the fact of what they're doing and how the world is changing, leaving the rest of us kinda uh uninformed or sort of unaware of these things and that they're potentially an existential problem. And therefore, if you are trying to drum up then support for some things that actually need more of a push than just a you know, executive agreement between two countries, you're gonna have a problem. Because people just haven't been sort of put in that place where you you have to tell them, like, ah well, you know, things have changed. We're gonna have to you know, we're gonna have to tighten our belts here to be able to like do this thing for our own sake. Because that's not that's not a like we've been shielded from that for decades, and and now it's those chickens are coming home to roost, but we're not being sort of psychologically or information-wise prepared for the for whatever shock is coming if it comes. Yeah. So that I and I don't understand the pol pol political sort of um logic of that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_04Is it is it because they're afraid to kind of be to be saying, you know, things might get bad and then they don't, then they look stupid, or are they don't do they not think that the public understands the problem, or do they think the public would uh not react the way they want them to react to the problem? Uh it's it baffles me. Because it's not an exclusively Icelandic thing.
SPEAKER_01No, i I think it's tricky. Um I mean, but if we think about Iceland for a second, like why would Christroun act this way? Like, why isn't she pushing this harder? Why or at all? I don't know. I think she is also just it's a political calculus for her. Like, is this the the hill I want to die on? Yeah. You know, wanna would do I wanna expend my political capital on this? I I think she's more interested in other things.
SPEAKER_04Um I guess that's also where I I think that's accurate, but that's also where I'm kind of confused because I think it's a kind of an important hill.
SPEAKER_01It it it is. Uh and I mean it's in their party program.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I'm not talking about the EU program itself, like joining EU. I'm talking about kind of like where we're at in the world right now. Sure, sure. Because it the you have to expand political capital to go there, but it seems more self-serving and calculated and less sort of um a case of quote unquote kind of doing the right thing by saying stating the obvious, which bothers me. I find that to be weird.
SPEAKER_01It it is, and and also if you if you consider, you know, we are this micro nation. Like we only have one move. Like, let's be real here. It's it's either you hope things get better and they resolve themselves and we go back to the status quo. Yeah, the the w the way the world worked for eighty-something years, or you join the EU. Like we don't have any other moves. Like literally nothing. Because we are and I I know Icelanders hate to admit this, but we are completely powerless on the global on the world stage.
SPEAKER_04And even less so in a re reoriented power politics world than we were before.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. And and uh if we like, I mean Donald Trump has said the Western hemisphere is mine. The Don doctrine or Trump doctrine, I forget what he calls it. Uh Russia clearly wants its sphere of influence, which would be Central Asia and Eastern Europe. China has its own sphere of influence. And so you you I I think what we seem to be pushing towards this kind of concert of Europe idea where the world gets kind of split up into the superpowers control these areas. Now so we are stuck between what potentially is a superpower, which is the European Union, and what is a superpower, which is the United States. So where would our interest be best served? And I think this is an important part of this discussion about the EU. Um which, yes, I don't feel that is discussed enough because this is an existential issue. The existential issue being discussed are these ideas about freedom, democracy, sovereignty, whatnot.
SPEAKER_00Kind of a borrowed borrowed discussion from from the NATO initial joining of NATO, right?
SPEAKER_01Yeah, thirty years ago. It's the same thing. I mean, that's what Oliver Harderson says in the piece. Yeah. He talks directly about this. Yeah. All these arguments that are being brought up by the copy-paste from earlier arguments. Yeah. I mean you see Olaf Erna Grimson, our former president, you know, pulling out you know the greatest hits from his opposition to this 30 years ago. He's now going into international media and he's being very active on Twitter. I'm sorry. You know, talking about it. Oh no. So so so therefore it seems like a bit of a repeat. And and I think it's an important point to bring up now, because this is also mentioned I mentioned this in the article, is that where this is mentioned. Nobody really is against us being in the European economic area today. Like all the people that spoke against it, right, they almost immediately went quieter with their opposition after we had joined.
SPEAKER_04I think only a single politician has even suggested the idea of pulling out of the European economic area, and that was mid-flock in sort of the centre party, Snorri Mauson, and that did not get a lot of applause.
SPEAKER_01It's not a winning argument, is it?
SPEAKER_04No, everybody kind of ran away from that statement as fast as possible. Yeah. Including him, I think.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and I think for them it's also, you know, I I like I like spying on their supporters. I find them interesting. Um what what what I noticed is that some people will talk about joining the EU as some kind of a fundamental change in Icelandic immigration. You know, there will be so many foreigners. I I see this. Clearly, this is nonsensical because we're already in the European economic area. Right. We are in Schengen, you know. Free movement is the same. Yeah. So this is not something that's going to change with uh EU membership. Just not at all. Yeah, yeah. Um, it's a nonsensical i it it is. And and and uh I you know I I I love elections. I love democracy. It's the best. I love going to election parties. I love voting.
SPEAKER_00Oh, we should have sent you instead of us.
SPEAKER_01We were but uh but I gotta say though, like I'm not really looking forward to this referendum.
SPEAKER_00No, because we're what we're fearing is we're gonna see what happened in the UK, right? This kind of nationalist discussion. I just I don't think possibly anti-foreigner, and then this threat of violence. Uh I was I sorry, I couldn't help but thinking when you were talking, you know, um, of the NATO discussion in those protests. And uh my predecessor, Waller Gunerson, when he was the editor, he wrote a piece called Jack Boots on Ice, complaining about comparing the U.S. military presence to the um Nazis. Yeah.
SPEAKER_01I think that's unfair.
SPEAKER_00Which I said was maybe hyperbolic, but looking back now, obviously the EEA um is an agreement nobody disagrees with, but considering we don't know what's gonna happen with NATO in the next possible months, do we still are we still fond of the history of NATO in Iceland?
SPEAKER_01Yes.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. I think in general everybody's I mean I am 100%.
SPEAKER_01And I think most people are.
SPEAKER_00It wasn't just a failed experiment now that now that it's all getting.
SPEAKER_01No, no, no. I mean it's it's been the f foundational elements of peace in Europe.
SPEAKER_00Yeah.
SPEAKER_01And by extension in Iceland.
SPEAKER_00So even with the sour ending, it was still all worth it.
SPEAKER_01Of course. It was really good for 80 years. Yeah, eighty years is a long time. It's a really I mean it's a good run. I mean, it might be the most successful defense alliance in in human history. I think that you can make that argument.
SPEAKER_04Um trying to think of a Roman medieval example, but I can't I can't find that.
SPEAKER_00Yeah. So now people are starting to see what we cut out of the of the EU article and why it's so hard to get this across in a I mean, even when we're like, yeah. Even with a editor who's willing to throw out half of a magazine to get this across. Um it's hard to communicate all that's on the stage now. It is. Hopefully we'll come back to it later in the in a in a future article.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, and and and and it it it's such a terrible discussion. Because as you can see in the article, like the two sides can't even agree on fundamental things. Like figures, statistics, whatever. If you read the article, you'll see a couple of those examples. It's like people are occupying two separate realities. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04I think my favorite quote where that's kind of apparent is when uh the EU is described as the Franco-Prussian Union. It's a great line. Great line out of the U.S. Uh mind you that uh Prussia has not existed as a sovereign state uh since uh the 1870s and uh not as a uh federal state since 1945 in Germany. Most of Prussia is no longer in Germany. Most of Prussia is in either in in Poland or or Russia. So yeah, that was interesting. Uh that's definitely uh uh people are different uh occupying different spaces, realities, and timelines there. Yeah. Sorry.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, no, no, no. And I mean, actually, Elias and I had long discussions about like this idea of an existential threat to what it means to be Iceland. And I'm like, well, what dates are we gonna use here? I mean, are we gonna use 1944 or are we gonna use like the date uh people were allowed to have housing in the city, because that's a different date, or the date um the Danish court stepped in and said, you know, you can start using fisheries now, you don't have to require essentially indentured servitude, which was kind of the way life was in Iceland in the 19th century.
SPEAKER_01Oh, yeah, servitude, yeah, yeah. So it's like Iceland and Russia were I think the last countries to abolish abolish system.
SPEAKER_00So uh like in the communities I talk with, like they see EU as the you know fleeing to the EU as escaping the people that have been colonizing them, which is not just Denmark, it's the people that Denmark worked with, which is the ruling class of Iceland, which kind of has access, has control over the fisheries in in in a narrative. Again, a narrative is that there's a ruling class of Iceland that has oppressed people in this country for a thousand years, and they they happen to now control the last newspaper and the and uh and the fisheries and a chance to escape them um through uh a through the EU is something that they kind of treasure and they see this pushback as just, you know, they're saying, Oh, we're protecting Iceland, we want to protect Iceland, and they see it as uh the you want to protect your uh your interests. Yeah, or your ruling your ruling party. And uh it's not worked out for us so far. Why we want to keep you in power.
SPEAKER_01Well, but but the but the uh the counter-argument they would make to this is well who were you replacing people with? Yeah. Elites in Brussels would be what people would argue. And and then that truths are coexisting. And then people point to because you know we need to criticize Iceland, because I think you know, to love one's country is to criticize it. I think blind patriotism is just stupid. But I know a political party would disagree with that. But uh you know, in regards to a lot of economic factors, let's not forget, you need to keep this in perspective. Iceland does really well. Right. And what people like to point out is just like the living standards in Norway. I think that's a flawed argument because Norway has a very special position given its natural resources. But I think there's an argument to be made there that Iceland does really well. Like I was just in Italy last week. Great country, love it, beautiful.
SPEAKER_00Oh, yeah, yeah. I mean Tan and Hews and France. Yeah, the food, the food, yeah.
SPEAKER_01Um but but but clearly there have been economic issues there for a long time. Yeah. You know, Greece gets mentioned in this article in regards to the currency situation. They are still recovering from the crash. We bounced back really fast. Now, people will say that's because of the corona, but there was also we were fortunate that there was a volcanic eruption that brought a lot of tension to the country, which you know helped push the tourism boom.
SPEAKER_00Right. So the tourism boom, just briefly, brief economic history, currently valued almost by half. At the same time there was a volcanic eruption, tourists discovered that Iceland is suddenly an affordable place. To go and they floated the economy and changed the the main influx of the economy from fishing to tourism, kind of like that.
SPEAKER_01Yeah. But let's not forget the currency devaluation is not the best thing. I can tell you, I I lived in Denmark, I was studying uh and I was surviving off my student loans. Oh god. So so they they they they grew for 100%.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, your net worth or even if you have savings, your net worth is half of what it was yesterday. Yeah, yeah.
SPEAKER_04By the end of 2008, I had booked a trip to Denmark with my girlfriend to visit her sister. And uh in December, so the the whole thing went to shit in October. And I think I paid in Copenhagen when we stopped there for like a burger and a drink. I think I paid somewhere in the neighborhood of two hundred and fifty dollars for uh in current value for two beers in the country that sells some of the cheapest beer in at least Scandinavia, and two basic hamburgers. Yeah. That was fun.
SPEAKER_01That's true. And and I and I feel that you know I I have friends who are economists and you know, I even have a friend who is pro-EU membership, but he's anti-Euro. And and the the the only argument I can really get from people who talk, you know, up the krona is that it's great when everything goes to shit.
SPEAKER_04Yeah.
SPEAKER_01Which I think is maybe not the best if if we have a currency that that is not delivering in the good times, but it's good as a kind of emergency break. Yeah. To me, it's like, yeah, it's great to have bomb shelters when you're being bombed, but wasting money on it in peacetime just seems kind of dumb.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, I mean it's an argument that stems from not only our 2008 problems, but mostly from the Euro crisis and Greece, where you know economists was pointing out like Greece would be having a much better time if they could just simply devalue their own currency, which they couldn't. Um I think maybe one of the things that would potentially become a problem for us down the line within the EU and with in the Eurozone is that we do still kind of like our economy is not as sort of like it's but it's much more diverse than it was like 50 or 40 years ago. But because it's not completely diverse, it is prone to like booms and busts. Because you have large components like tourism, like fisheries, that just simply can shift massively from year to year in cases of fisheries just based on how much fish is there, and in the case of tourism, just like I don't know. How many tourists are there? If some dumbass decides to uh block the main shipping lane of of uh jet fuel, you might have a problem, right? Yeah.
SPEAKER_00No, that I mean this is this is some kind of sci-fi dystopian novel you're quoting?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, it's the June, I think. Yeah. Um June 2026. June 2026. But I think uh I think we've uh uh kinda outstated our our welcome on the air here. We've we've gone we've gone far and wide here. Um and I see think even though we could go on for like another couple of hours, I think this should be should stop now. We can I think we should have another talk as the summer progresses, if there's something to kind of discuss about the upcoming referendum or closer to it.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, or this reminds me though we need to get you out to do a follow-up on your Christian interview. Maybe that could be our next feature. I'm saying this on air so that people can comment if they want that.
SPEAKER_01What up, Christian?
SPEAKER_04Yeah, like what how how how how yeah, how are you feeling now? One year later.
SPEAKER_01Still good? Yeah, still good. Um but I I I think I would like one thing to wrap up here. Uh I would just be curious, is it gonna which way is this gonna go? Looking at it now, three months from now, are we continuing or restarting or starting negotiations or not?
SPEAKER_04My flip toss of the coin feeling only based on vibe right now is like they will not know. That's my initial feeling right now. Because it's vibe-based and because the components that make up the elements that kind of influence people's um voting on this based on the polling are kind of so f in flux. I'm simply gonna say that's right now, and then come August and I'll tell you how I think people are feeling then and whether or not this will go one way or the other. That's kind of my take on it. I think it's just gonna depend on what's gonna be discussed the week before the referendum.
SPEAKER_00I'd love to see the polling on the municipal elections. I know uh the municipal don't shape the national, but this is only ISONIC citizens can vote in this, am I correct, on the referendum? Yes. Yes. Um because I'd be curious to see if if uh what we were talking about earlier about soundphill kicking or if the Social Democrats doing okay around the country in the municipal elections if that was floated by their uh foreign language outreach that they did, which they were doing pretty impressively. My guess is the referendum will fail spectacularly, and I'm not even sure it'll happen.
SPEAKER_01So I I think I'm I'm gonna disagree with you on this failing spectacularly. I think that's never gonna happen.
SPEAKER_00You think it'll okay.
SPEAKER_01I I think it's gonna be close. Okay. I think it's gonna be very close.
SPEAKER_04I I st I agree, I agree with that. I think it's gonna be close. Still, I think that. But I think because it was always like narrow margins, I think somehow the vibe is like more towards a no than a yes right now.
SPEAKER_01I get that. And I think what Haralter talks about in the piece is correct. I think the people against this are more passionate. Yes. I think they're more outspoken. And more likely to show up and vote. Yes, probably. However, I think in this case, and I think most people understand this, a no is a much bigger uh statement than yes. Because this is just about do we talk to these people effectively? Yeah. So that's why and I'm gonna be the opposing vote here. I'm gonna say it's gonna pass, but it's gonna be very close. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04We should next time we talk about this, yeah, we'll wager some cash on this. Right? Or a couple of beers, whatever it is. Anyway, this is gonna drop in. Elias, thank you so much for coming in and and and well, going through the emotions of talking about the EU and the just recent municipal election and what all of this means and for your months of work on this article and your master.
SPEAKER_00And surviving my horrific editorial discussions and not and still facing me afterwards. It's always uh always a pleasure. Thank you.
SPEAKER_04This is uh this is this votes well for the future of the grip one that uh you guys are having a good thing going on. Um I look forward to the next piece from you, whether uh whatever it's gonna be on.
SPEAKER_00Yeah, we should think that we have a special agreement to keep you going on these massive pieces that take you onto the thing.
SPEAKER_04Yeah, and next time when you get sort of like these massive inflammatory votes that go um go uh viral. Please be in the country. Don't be in don't be eating paninis and something it a little bit.
SPEAKER_00I offered to do this chat from Iskia, the the beautiful island of we don't have the the technical to do this this online, and also we and and it was my mistake to put the paper down and not and then I ducked out for that interview um and did not did not get it up digitally. So yeah, yeah, that's that's on you guys.
SPEAKER_04That's on us.
SPEAKER_00It's on me specifically, actually. Yeah.
SPEAKER_04But like I said, this was the drop-in. Thanks for dropping in. See you next time. Bye-bye. Bye.