The Independence and Progressive Parties, which are in the opposition in Iceland’s parliament, agreed yesterday to submit a joint parliamentary resolution on the European Union, hoping for support from at least some of the Left-Green MPs.
Inside Iceland’s Althingi parliament. Copyright: Icelandic Photo Agency.
According to Morgunbladid’s sources, the main issue of the resolution is that the Althingi parliament’s foreign affairs committee be provided with the task of making sure that Iceland’s primary interests are discussed thoroughly before a decision on whether to launch membership negotiations with the EU is made.
The two parties propose that the committee write a report on Iceland’s most important interests in connection with EU membership negotiations and work on a framework to address the primary matters of contention.
The framework would cover the public’s participation in membership application, how the negotiation committee is to be appointed, how Althingi is informed during membership negotiations and what kind of changes must be made to the constitution in case of admission to the EU.
The resolution further states that the nature of the official support of presenting the results of the EU membership negations should be specified and a cost estimate should be submitted beforehand. These tasks are to be completed by August 31.
The Independence and Progressive Parties will submit their resolution today. Minister for Foreign Affairs Össur Skarphédinsson of the Social Democrats will also submit a parliamentary resolution on the EU today, which the government has approved.
However, it remains clear that some members of the other coalition party, the Left-Greens, will not support the government’s parliamentary resolution.
According to Morgunbladid, the chairmen of the Independence Party, Bjarni Benediktsson, and the Progressive Party, Sigmundur Davíd Gunnlaugsson, have discussed how they could take advantage of that fact ever since the government’s policy on the EU became clear.
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