Politico reported Iceland's desire to speed up the EU accession process

The Icelandic authorities want to speed up the process of joining the European Union (EU) by holding a referendum on the resumption of negotiations on this issue in August this year. This was reported by the Politico newspaper on February 23, citing sources.

According to the publication, this is happening against the background of a growing desire for EU enlargement. The ruling coalition in Reykjavik promised to put the issue of resuming negotiations to a referendum after the previous cabinet froze the process in 2013.

Allegedly, the deadlines may be revised against the background of the changed geopolitical situation, Washington's imposition of duties on Iceland and statements by US President Donald Trump about his intention to annex Greenland.

"The Icelandic parliament is expected to announce the date of the vote within the next few weeks. This step was taken after a series of visits by EU politicians to Iceland and Icelandic politicians to Brussels," two sources familiar with the information said.

It is emphasized that in the case of a "yes" vote, Iceland will join the EU before any other candidate country.

Iceland applied to join the EU in 2009 amid the financial crisis, but negotiations were frozen in December 2013. In 2015, Reykjavik asked not to consider the country as a candidate.

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On January 15, Politico newspaper drew attention to a joke by former Congressman Billy Long, who was nominated by Trump for the post of ambassador to Iceland, about turning the country into the 52nd state of the United States. It was specified that in this case he himself would take the post of governor.

On January 3, the Iceland Cricket Association expressed joy at the fact that Trump would not be interested in Iceland due to the lack of minerals in the country. According to them, Venezuela has oil, Greenland has rare earth minerals, and Iceland only has volcanoes.

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