Islands nei – hva nå?

In the recent referendum, the Icelandic people voted "no" to rejoining EU membership negotiations. The atmosphere leading up to the vote was mixed, with some commentators suggesting a "yes" vote was possible. However, in Iceland, the prevailing sentiment was concern that Norway could join the EU before the Icelandic people could, leaving the country isolated. Now that the EU's supporters have taken the lead, it's clear that the "yes" side's dream of EU membership dominates the European debate.

Instead of focusing on the "yes" side's dream of EU membership, Norway and Iceland must discuss the rigid consequences of popular opinion in both nations. Rødt has initiated a wide-ranging reform of how Norway handles its relationship with the EU. So far, we have received feedback on neighbor scrutiny, which means the government must explain how other countries handle the EU's regulations before being granted Storting's consent to implement the same rule in Norway.

This is to avoid Norway being more Catholic than the Pope when it comes to following EU rules. We have received support from representatives of nearly all parties to require the government to consult the Storting earlier and more thoroughly on negotiations with the EU. We have taken inspiration from measures taken in Iceland. So, next steps are needed.

Now, Iceland needs to see that they have good and reliable friends outside the EU. Friends willing to stand up for them against EU Commission pressure and US demands. As Canada's Prime Minister Mark Carney said in his famous Davos speech: countries that are not superpowers must stop competing with each other to be as accommodating as possible.

Norway and Iceland are both EFTA members. We have resources that EU countries need for their industries. There are examples where we share interests, but so far, we have not formed a united front: while Norway automatically allows EFTA regulations to take precedence over Norwegian law, Iceland's EFTA law states that EFTA rules apply "as far as they apply," opening the door for Icelandic law to take precedence if it conflicts with EU-made rules.

This is not enough for surveillance agency ESA, which has been pressing Iceland to change its EFTA law for years. Now the Icelandic government says it will follow ESA's demands and propose to remove this part of national jurisdiction in the fall. This means that the outcome of a close referendum, which the government lost, could be that Iceland submits to even stricter EU rules – a stark contrast to the "no" vote.

No one needs to be a genius to see that this could lead to a serious loss of trust in Icelandic politics. Iceland has stood alone in this fight and is on the verge of backing down. Norwegian governments have sat on the sidelines and "not conceded anything." Norway must act immediately, both to the ESA and EU, to support the principle that a country has the right to enact and enforce its own laws.

This is a fundamental democratic principle. The clearest support Norway can give is to amend our EFTA law accordingly so courts can prioritize Norwegian law, as Rødt proposed earlier in the Storting. In the ACER dispute of 2018, when the Storting majority consented to include the EU's third energy package in the EFTA agreement, two of the three ruling parties in Iceland voted against transferring energy sovereignty to the EU.

After Norway said "yes," Iceland had no one to turn to, and introduced the package a year later. Like Norway, Iceland has recently experienced EU's protectionist measures to impose tariffs and quotas on our industries. EU's protectionist measures against our livestock industries show that EFTA agreement is not a guarantee for equal treatment in the internal market.

EU enters into more trade agreements with other countries, giving Britain, Canada, and Japan lower tariffs on processed seafood than the EFTA agreement provides for Norway and Iceland. As EU obligations increasingly favor one direction, while negotiations for EU membership sit in a suspended state in both Norway and Iceland, it cannot mean anything other than that we must discuss alternatives to the EFTA agreement.

This must be done widely among all democratic non-EU countries around the North Sea and Arctic, with the aim of renouncing the EFTA agreement. Doing so would require Article 127 to be implemented, calling EU EFTA countries together to re-negotiate the agreement. Rødt stands apart from the Progress Party, as we clearly state that the EFTA agreement must be renounced, while the Progress Party only says that the EFTA agreement should be re-negotiated, which is only possible if we first renounce it.