Iceland as a candidate country

Iceland as a candidate country

By letter of April 28, 2010 Vice-President of the European Commission, Maroš Šefčovič and the member of the European Commission responsible for the enlargement process, Štefan Füle asked the EESC, under Article 304 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union, to draw up an exploratory opinion on Iceland as a candidate country.

 

The aim of the opinion is to broaden knowledge about the current prospects for negotiations with Iceland, especially concerning issues of particular interest to European non-state stakeholders, and to provide a picture of civil society in Iceland as well as to assess the legal, political and operational context in which civil society stakeholders operate.

 

Iceland applied for EU membership in July 2009 and on 24 February 2010 the Commission issued a positive opinion on Iceland’s application. On 17 June 2010 the European Council decided to open accession negotiations and invited the Council to adopt a general Negotiating Framework. The decision was endorsed by the European Parliament on 28 June 2010.

 

Iceland has already implemented a large portion of the EU acquis through the EEA Agreement and the Schengen Association Agreement; this will facilitate the screening process and subsequent chapter by chapter negotiations. However, challenges remain in some key areas such as agriculture, fisheries and monetary policy. The screening process has started and is scheduled to be concluded in June 2011.

 

While membership as such remains a debated issue, support for accession negotiations seems to have recently increased: 64% prefer to continue the EU accession process, rather than withdraw the application. This is a considerable increase in support for the accession process as compared to earlier polls.

 

The EESC strongly supports Iceland's membership of the EU and emphasises the importance of the participation of Icelandic civil society in the accession negotiations. The social partners have traditionally had a strong role in the Icelandic policy process and already have ties with the EESC and European umbrella organisations.

 

The Committee recommends that a Joint Consultative Committee be set up for Iceland as quickly as possible, as has been done for other pre-accession states. The Committee believes that this will be a useful mechanism for exchanging views and information between the civil societies of Iceland and the EU Member States, for expressing joint recommendations and opinions to the negotiating parties.

 

As well as the social partners, the Committee underlines the need for broader civil society participation from various interest groups. It is necessary to ensure a "civil dialogue" in addition to the more traditional social dialogue during the accession process.