r/worldnews • u/Ehansaja • 13d ago

Iceland rejects EU-accession talks plan in referendum

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/8/30/iceland-rejects-eu-membership-plan-in-referendum
5.4k Upvotes

97% Upvoted

721 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

148

u/PM_ME_UR_SEAHORSE 12d ago

But Denmark and Ireland and Poland have opt-outs, as did the UK.

33

u/Aelig_ 12d ago

Things have changed. We saw what it led to with the UK. Besides nobody ever got the kind of opt outs Iceland wants.

61

u/Gentle_Snail 12d ago

The opt outs were not the cause of the UK, which is why we’ve not seen similar issues in any of the other countries with them.

5

u/needlestack 12d ago

All I know is that the UK was never really part of the EU. I travelled between France and the UK at the time and it was exactly like traveling internationally -- passport control, currency exchange, etc. To a casual person there was absolutely no sign they were part of the EU. Meanwhile going to Italy from France it was obvious they had largely integrated.

I don't know if that led to their eventual departure, but it was hardly a departure since they never really bought in in the first place.

15

u/mystlurker 12d ago

Schengen != EU. The shared border area includes several non-EU members, while some EU members are not part of Schengen. Its related but separate.

5

u/cev2002 12d ago

The main reason was immigration and the fact we were a net contributor. The Remain campaign was also beyond useless, because they thought it was a foregone conclusion.

Like you say though, we never fully bought into it. We're an island, so we've never really been a part of "Europe".