Icelanders head to polls for referendum on whether to resume talks to join EU

Icelanders are heading to the polls on Saturday to vote on whether their country should resume talks to join the European Union, years after discussions stalled.

Around 265,000 eligible voters will be asked to answer yes or no to the question: Should Iceland resume accession negotiations with the European Union?

The vote comes amid threats by US President Donald Trump to control nearby Greenland, which is currently a self-governing territory of Denmark.

The underlying worry is that Iceland may be the Trump administration's next target, while the EU could provide a potential bulwark against any threat if Iceland joined the bloc.

Central to discussions about joining the EU will be Iceland's fishing industry.

If the majority votes yes in the referendum, negotiations would start with the EU's executive branch, the European Commission, that will involve discussions on 35 areas, including Iceland's fishing stocks in the rich North Atlantic waters.

If Iceland joined the EU, they would have to join its common fisheries policy that would allow Spanish, Dutch and other trawlers into their waters.

But the government has indicated it would look for a special deal and maybe even a full opt-out from the policy.

Iceland is already in the EU's frictionless single market and the Schengen free-travel zone.

In the final days ahead of the vote, Iceland's Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir has sought to remind voters that the referendum is not the end of the matter, and that there will be another referendum if and when a membership agreement with the EU has been reached.

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"This is not an election about membership and not about adaptation, as there will be another referendum on an accession agreement if the result is yes," Ms Frostadottir told a rally.

Iceland first applied to join ⁠the EU in 2009, in the depths of a financial crisis that ⁠hit the country's small, exposed economy particularly hard.

Talks finished in 2013 when a Eurosceptic government shelved the process.

But renewed geopolitical turmoil has brought fresh urgency to an issue that Icelanders have debated on and off for decades.

Polling stations are due to close at 11pm UK time and results are expected to come in overnight.

(c) Sky News 2026: Icelanders head to polls for referendum on whether to resume talks to join EU