Iceland Warms to Europe

If the Nordic countries have always stood a little culturally apart from the countries that make up the core of the European Union, Iceland might be the country that feels the most culturally distinct of all. Its geographic isolation, small population and unique geothermal landscape have over the decades combined to produce a country that is both of Europe and separate from it — and proudly so.

So it says something about the state of the world that Iceland is seriously considering joining the E.U. My colleague Amelia Nierenberg, who has spent a lot of time in the Nordic countries in recent months, explains why.

Why Iceland is suddenly looking toward Europe

By Amelia Nierenberg

In the past, Iceland never really wanted to be part of the European Union.

Geographically, it sits smack-dab between Europe and North America. Culturally, it views itself as European and already follows a lot of E.U. laws. But on a practical level, Iceland has fiercely guarded its independence — which it gained from Denmark only in 1944 — and its precious fish stocks.

In other words, Iceland has happily been a part of Europe, without being part of the E.U. itself.

But then President Trump threatened Greenland, Iceland’s closest neighbor. And some Icelanders started to wonder if the time had come to join a bigger alliance.

“The Greenland crisis definitely hit a nerve,” Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir told me in February in her office in Reykjavik.

Even though few Icelanders think Trump would threaten them directly, they still gasped as he mixed Iceland up with Greenland in remarks made at Davos, Switzerland. They seethed at reports that Trump’s pick for ambassador had joked that Iceland could become the 52nd state. (He later apologized.)

Iceland’s 400,000 residents are now heading toward a referendum as soon as August on whether to plunge into talks with the E.U.

If it succeeds, Iceland would sit down with the E.U. to hammer out a deal. The process could take years — and Icelanders would vote again to finalize the deal — but the fact that there is even serious debate about joining the E.U. reflects a major shift.

“People feel that they might be forced to pick a side,” said Eirikur Bergmann, a politics professor at Bifrost University in Iceland. “And then there is really only one side to pick.”

More E.U. than the E.U.

The E.U. doesn’t accept just anyone. But Iceland would be an attractive get.

It’s a wealthy country and it’s in a strategic location at the gateway to the Arctic, where superpowers are vying for dominance.

It almost out-E.U.s the E.U. on metrics like gender equality, life expectancy and safety. And it’s beloved: Each year, millions of tourists save up for a once-in-a-lifetime trip around its volcanic shores.

One thing Iceland doesn’t have, though, is a military.

It’s a NATO member that has long relied on the alliance for protection. It also has a separate defense pact with the United States. American soldiers were stationed in Iceland for decades.

But today, that relationship feels much more uncertain.

The real fear, analysts said, is that if Trump destroys NATO, Iceland will be left exposed.

The E.U. is not a military force. But with the U.S. looking increasingly unreliable as a security partner, European leaders have been chewing on their options. They’ve been discussing the use of a little-known mutual defense clause in the E.U. charter, which could offer member states more insurance in an increasingly uncertain world.

And Iceland has been paying attention. It signed a security and defense partnership with the E.U. in March. But for those who’d like to go further, being in the alliance is always better than being a friend of the alliance.

Safety in numbers

Of course, joining the E.U. is hardly a done deal. Icelanders would first have to agree to the talks — and August is a long way away.

And when I visited in February, fishermen and farmers told me they were worried about giving up control of their industries. Some people said they thought the E.U. could bury them under a headache of regulations meant for a mainland country like Germany or Slovakia. A few didn’t think that Trump’s threats to Greenland were all that serious.

Still, what’s happening in Iceland reflects a broader dynamic that is unfolding across the Nordic countries.

These countries have always held themselves a little bit apart from the rest of the continent. Many see themselves as Nordic before they see themselves as European, proud of their shared heritage, their high standard of living and their northern toughness.

But after Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, Sweden and Finland abandoned their decades of strategic nonalignment and joined NATO.

Now, the region is facing more threats — this time, in the form of erratic bluster from Washington. In just the past few months, Greenland cozied up to Denmark, its former colonizer. The Faroe Islands, the third part of the Danish realm, paused negotiations for more autonomy from Copenhagen. And in Norway — which, like Iceland, has also steered clear of the E.U. — an opposition leader is also pushing for another debate about joining the bloc.

The common denominator: These wealthy, but small nations are reacting to profound shifts in the world order by leaning into alliances. It’s easy to prioritize fishing — one of Iceland’s most important industries, after all — when the world feels like a stable place. It’s harder when it starts getting dangerous out there.

For more: I joined cod fishermen on choppy seas and joined the Icelandic Coast Guard on a surveillance flight. Read about my (sometimes nauseating) reporting trip here.

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