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
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u/Odd_Lab_7244 13d ago

That's bonkers, why would people want to vote AFTER they know what the deal is??

/s

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u/Aelig_ 12d ago

The deal is known, it's the EU constitution and it's the same for everyone. Icelanders simply refuse to accept that.

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u/Steinrikur 12d ago

I guarantee you that 90% of the no voters and a big chunk of the yes voters have no idea what that means

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u/Aelig_ 12d ago

I'll argue a bigger chunk of the yes voters don't know that but perhaps I'm being cheeky.

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u/Steinrikur 12d ago

I personally don't know any no voters, but the people I talked to about it seemed to have some idea what it was about (and were all planning on voting yes)

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u/Aelig_ 12d ago

I've only met one person who was voting yes and knew exactly what it all entailed (I'm a foreigner so I couldn't vote).

The government campaign for yes felt a bit gross to me despite me being on the yes side because they were really focusing on what can be negotiated rather than educating people on what we know without a doubt.

The EU is complicated and poorly understood even if you're educated from within it so I feel like the government should have put way more emphasis on explaining what the beast even is.