Iceland is to be fast tracked into EU Membership.

Run_to_da_hills

Iceland is to be fast-tracked into the European Union in an attempt to stop the country going into complete financial meltdown, it emerged last night.

The small Arctic nation is expected to apply for membership within months and become the 29th member state of the EU within just two years.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/worldnews/article-1132124/Iceland-fast-tracked-European-Union-stop-economic-meltdown.html

mike65

Just been reading about it on the Grauniad site.

I can only presume Turkey might fancy inquiring about a leg-up? At least they have long since wanted to join. Iceland should apply for membership of Canada or Russia.

thebman

mike65 wrote: »

Just been reading about it on the Grauniad site.

I can only presume Turkey might fancy inquiring about a leg-up? At least they have long since wanted to join. Iceland should apply for membership of Canada or Russia.

Why? Iceland is in Europe.

Scofflaw

thebman wrote: »

Why? Iceland is in Europe.

They're not just European, even:

As expected, the researchers found that early Icelanders' maternal lineage was largely Scottish and Irish. They found that an estimated 58 percent of modern day Icelanders' maternal ancestry is Scottish and Irish. For ancient Icelanders, that estimate was even higher — in the skeletal samples tested, the maternal lineage was estimated to be 65 percent Scottish and Irish.

Source.

cordially,
Scofflaw

kevteljeur

So membership of the EU should be based on geneology? Perhaps parts of Canada can join too, and maybe a bit of the US.


On a more serious note, I sort of thought that Iceland generally valued it's neutrality. I guess you can trade that for the euro if you need it enough. Of course, it was also interesting how Ireland was compared to Iceland; small European state with weak, mickey-mouse economy melts down completely. In the EU, you are relatively safe. Outside, you are stuffed.

partyguinness

Like most things in life it all comes down to money.:(

Scofflaw

kevteljeur wrote: »

So membership of the EU should be based on geneology? Perhaps parts of Canada can join too, and maybe a bit of the US.

I'm unable to resist an opportunity to cite a scientific article. It's sort of a reflex.

I don't think one can claim that Iceland is historically not part of Europe, is the point, really. Their history is part of our history, and vice-versa.

kevteljeur wrote: »

On a more serious note, I sort of thought that Iceland generally valued it's neutrality. I guess you can trade that for the euro if you need it enough. Of course, it was also interesting how Ireland was compared to Iceland; small European state with weak, mickey-mouse economy melts down completely. In the EU, you are relatively safe. Outside, you are stuffed.

Perhaps they are unswayed by the Irish No side's arguments of doomed neutrality. Quite a lot of people are, after all.

cordially,
Scofflaw

mike65

My crack about Russia was based on the 5.4 billion dollar bail out they got (no doubt with Artic oil rights in mind), as for Canada - well why not? Only another 300k and joint soverignty over much of the Arctic basin might make good sense (see Russia).

WooPeeA

Hope Iceland won't be considered as the one who will replace Ireland.

partyguinness

I have heard on more than one occasion that Iceland has 6:1 ratio of women to men.

While I would love to think its true...it cant be. But if it is then I am all for Iceland joining the EU.:D

ps It might have been spread by the Icelandic Tourist Board.

enda1

partyguinness wrote: »

Like most things in life it all comes down to money.:(

Oh boo hoo.

Why do you think they really stayed out in the first place? Something fishy about that me thinks!

dyl10

enda1 wrote: »

Something fishy about that me thinks!

Wing Walker

Hi guys,

This has been on the cards for sometime, but it's only since the financial crisis that more serious efforts have been made to have Iceland in the EU. There has been a lot of murmurings in the EU Parliament about how to speed up Icelandic accession over the last few months. But there are problems, as has been, mentioned with the lack of a government and the state of their economy. It may not be as fast as some might hope.

Having spoken with some Icelandic people last year, I'm not entirely sure if they (i.e. the general Icelandic public) would be in favour of joining the EU. I wonder if the financial crisis has changed their minds?

partyguinness

enda1 wrote: »

Oh boo hoo.

Why do you think they really stayed out in the first place? Something fishy about that me thinks!

To protect their fishing stocks/industry I believe was the main reason.

Well thats neither here nor there now.

They are now looking to join for financial reasons and to have the (relative) comfort of the EU in the midst of a financial meltdown...money..money..money

mysterious

Oh O. I can see things. Not good here.

NWO....

derry

Iceland didnt sell out like ROI did

We gave away more in value to the EU with our fishing and fish than we got back from the EU.As a result we got hardly any fish left and the majority of the quota that can be fished is now dished out to Spanish and French boats which are often owned by big comapanies that only pay low wages to thier crews

Iceland with its 200 mile limit around the Island and half the Atlantic reserved only for iceland boats or boats under licence which landed the catches on Iceland is set to become a another fished out desert region as the big EU fleets come in to strip mine fish out the sea around Iceland .

I wonder how much they paid they paid the heads of these Icelandic banks to ensure Iceland was bankrupted and forced to join the EU or the Russian Mafia

Thats not taking into account the rumoured huge oil feilds around Iceland which will be thrown in as freebee for the EU to steal from them.

Well as they say if your a small fish in a big ocean your chance not to be eaten by the very big fish is small very small.


So much for Icelands good old buddy USA which used them as a rock solid bases ally in the cold war and then were happy to let the Russian mafia buy the whole gaff for cents on the dollar.

So now its divide and share out the spoils of war for the big boys


I wonder what our banks sold us out for seeing as they say we are only one letter in the difference and 6 months behind Iceland


Watch the goose steppers take control and ensure the Shell pipe line get built anywhere they want in ROI same as they treat the Nigeria place another gaff they own lock stock and barrel (of oil that is or gas whatever is your poison) and then watch the oil and gas get sold to the highest bidder and if it isnt us tough it gets shipped out to the richer places in the EU
Then when the oil and gas is all gone we too will have to pick up the clean up tab as they ditch us and leave behind the polluted mess same as the hapless victims of Shell in delta region in Nigeria



Derry

Hitman Actual

derry wrote: »

We gave away more in value to the EU with our fishing and fish than we got back from the EU.As a result we got hardly any fish left and the majority of the quota that ccan be fished is now dished out to Spanish and French boats which are often owned by big comapanies that only pay low wages to thier crews

Source?

derry

lenny_leonard wrote: »

Source?

Simple the fishermen of ROI pointed this out repeatedly during the famous terms of surrender referendum.


I presume they took all the million of tons of fish that ever got fished in the ROI waters totted up the value which would be in gazzilions of euros (and punts from the past) and looked the total given in handouts to ROI from the EU and saw that there was more than a 25% diiference in the wrong direction
If you know better tell the ROI fishermen and you might get two rotten fish stuffed into your two mouths :pac::pac::pac:

Derry

professore

Scofflaw wrote: »

They're not just European, even:



As expected, the researchers found that early Icelanders' maternal lineage was largely Scottish and Irish. They found that an estimated 58 percent of modern day Icelanders' maternal ancestry is Scottish and Irish. For ancient Icelanders, that estimate was even higher — in the skeletal samples tested, the maternal lineage was estimated to be 65 percent Scottish and Irish.

That explains the incompetent politicians, banks and the boom-bust mentality - it's in their genes !!!

professore

derry wrote: »

Iceland didnt sell out like ROI did

We gave away more in value to the EU with our fishing and fish than we got back from the EU.As a result we got hardly any fish left and the majority of the quota that can be fished is now dished out to Spanish and French boats which are often owned by big comapanies that only pay low wages to thier crews

Derry

We STILL get billions from the EU. Most of it went to the farmers of this country. At the time of the deal our fishing fleet was tiny.

SOURCE: http://farmsubsidy.org/ireland

The Germans contribute €3,455 billion p.a. NET to the CAP, we get €1.007 billion NET p.a. In the 80's it was far more.

Only for the EU and the euro we would be Iceland now. SOURCE: http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/finance/2009/0131/1232923378749.html

As for jackboots, slap a black uniform, a hat with a death's head and a swastika on the arm of Declan Ganley, ét voila ! you have your tinpot banana republic complete with dictator.

Do you even realise the reason workers here have the rights they have is because of the EU ? The Irish and UK resisted every improvement in workers rights tooth and nail. But i'm veering off-topic.

Capt'n Midnight

Couldn't the EU just buy them ?

Scofflaw

derry wrote: »

Simple the fishermen of ROI pointed this out repeatedly during the famous terms of surrender referendum.


I presume they took all the million of tons of fish that ever got fished in the ROI waters totted up the value which would be in gazzilions of euros (and punts from the past) and looked the total given in handouts to ROI from the EU and saw that there was more than a 25% diiference in the wrong direction
If you know better tell the ROI fishermen and you might get two rotten fish stuffed into your two mouths :pac::pac::pac:

Derry

No, they took a figure that was used by whatever opposition party was around at the time for the annual value of fish taken from Irish waters - 2 billion euro - and multiplied it by 35.

Thing is, there's no basis for the figure, which was cited as 2 billion punts before we joined the euro. It's just a convenient round number.

There's a thread on this already, which references the then Minister for the Marine refuting that figure, and also produces some more realistic estimates. It's not a small figure - €16bn or so - but no supportable figure is larger than the EU subventions we've received over the same period.

As to fishermen having some special claim to veracity - I wouldn't take the Irish Vintners Federation's word for the lost value of pub sales at face value either.

cordially,
Scofflaw

BroomBurner

Cool, if they joined soon enough, and joined the Euro while their currency is pretty low, it'll be good for those of us that have always wanted to holiday to Iceland!

On a less selfish note, I have no opinion on whether they join or not. The more the merrier and all that. Maybe Canada could join us, then we could take parts of Northern Russia and Northern Africa and begin a new era of the European Empire :cool:

Hitman Actual

derry wrote: »

Simple the fishermen of ROI pointed this out repeatedly during the famous terms of surrender referendum.


I presume they took all the million of tons of fish that ever got fished in the ROI waters totted up the value which would be in gazzilions of euros (and punts from the past) and looked the total given in handouts to ROI from the EU and saw that there was more than a 25% diiference in the wrong direction
If you know better tell the ROI fishermen and you might get two rotten fish stuffed into your two mouths :pac::pac::pac:

Derry

Epic fail, as they say, but I guess it's in keeping with the eurosceptic tradition of offering opinion without facts. You need to add "imo" to your posting vocabulary.

K-9

derry wrote: »

Iceland didnt sell out like ROI did

We gave away more in value to the EU with our fishing and fish than we got back from the EU.As a result we got hardly any fish left and the majority of the quota that can be fished is now dished out to Spanish and French boats which are often owned by big comapanies that only pay low wages to thier crews

Iceland with its 200 mile limit around the Island and half the Atlantic reserved only for iceland boats or boats under licence which landed the catches on Iceland is set to become a another fished out desert region as the big EU fleets come in to strip mine fish out the sea around Iceland .

I wonder how much they paid they paid the heads of these Icelandic banks to ensure Iceland was bankrupted and forced to join the EU or the Russian Mafia

Thats not taking into account the rumoured huge oil feilds around Iceland which will be thrown in as freebee for the EU to steal from them.

Well as they say if your a small fish in a big ocean your chance not to be eaten by the very big fish is small very small.


So much for Icelands good old buddy USA which used them as a rock solid bases ally in the cold war and then were happy to let the Russian mafia buy the whole gaff for cents on the dollar.

So now its divide and share out the spoils of war for the big boys


I wonder what our banks sold us out for seeing as they say we are only one letter in the difference and 6 months behind Iceland


Watch the goose steppers take control and ensure the Shell pipe line get built anywhere they want in ROI same as they treat the Nigeria place another gaff they own lock stock and barrel (of oil that is or gas whatever is your poison) and then watch the oil and gas get sold to the highest bidder and if it isnt us tough it gets shipped out to the richer places in the EU
Then when the oil and gas is all gone we too will have to pick up the clean up tab as they ditch us and leave behind the polluted mess same as the hapless victims of Shell in delta region in Nigeria



Derry

Thanks for pointing out we'd be TOTALLY fecked if we were outside the EU.

derry

K-9 wrote: »

Thanks for pointing out we'd be TOTALLY fecked if we were outside the EU.

You can adhere to that washed up thrash idea how you want

I don't adhere to it at all.Norway same population as ROI is doing very well outside the EU
I figure ROI can do very well outside the EU if that is democratic wishes of the population of ROI

The EU is cutting back it handouts to the richer feckers like us and may even start to charge us more for being in the club.

The feckeing edjit junket bonaza regime here which sell their mothers in every election always roll out the mantra were all fecked if we leave the EU

I personally think that the EU might be marginally more of a benefit to the ROI than outside of it but that's a personnel concept

I seen enough evidence that the the economic difference inside or out the EU is much the same were just as fecked both ways

The difference if we are in the EU is we will be more ruled from a corrupt EU regime which is not answerable to anything or anybody and can be caught red handed in corruption and not suffer any risks of any sort

Outside the EU were governed by the other local greedy regime which seems to even just as much unanswerable to anything or anybody

So for me its simple chose your poison democratically.For me having worked in lots of EU countries and seen and experienced their equally corrupt regimes I may prefer to go back there to get better sunny weather whatever but don't vote for the ROI to stay in the EU just to suit my needs

Certainly the regime here will be livid if we pull out as they would have to sell of the private jet and slum it on Ryan air .

So if your future involves closer ties to EU go for it and if your future can survive without the EU well then democratically chose your solution to exit the EU if the regime will let you .I would vote yes to stay inside the EU but i would still vote no for the referdum for the treaty as voting yes is voting in less democracy for the EU and once we vote yes we will never ever get a chance to vote again as the vote would be final


If the ejit regime here hadnt fecked up the economy we could have been able to go to the rescue of Iceland form a block together and own haf the atlantic ocean and the fishing there and been able to hep each other out as the Icelandics are our cousins

The name Iceland is irish for fish ICE so it land of fish not land of ice
But now that its sold out with thier fecked bankers who screwed them and we are fecked because the regime sold us down the drain EU probably has some big EU bosses coming here to dictate surrender terms which probaly involve we join the Nato and buy French and German or British frigates to protect French and Spanish British fishing here .Worse maybe we have to help out Iceland another nato ally with our new frigates short on a navy from selling it off and our navy expansion will be needed to bump up the EU milatary machine as in jobs in EU defence whatever




Derry

mike65

Norway, is that the place of 4 million with huge gas and oil reserves?

Vadrefjorde

The Dunquinn gas and oil reserves in the north and south Dunquinn fields in the Porcupine basin (125 miles off the Kerry coast) contain according to Tony O’Reilly’s providence resources approximately 4 billiion barrels of oil and 25 trillion cubic ft of natural gas, this has a market value in my estimation of in excess of €250 Billion.

Oh wait, didn't we sell that to Providence resources for €1

Hhmmm, i wonder what Norway did when they discovered similar reserves off their coast, aaah yeah they didn't sell it for €1 , they founded a state oil company called Statoil.

Quite right to compare us to Norway actually....

mike65

Norway oil reserves estimated at 12 billion. Estimated 84.3 trillion gas reserves left.

Lirange

Fast Track into the EU has been offered.

It has yet to be accepted.

The Green party is expected to be the majority party by April. They are against joining the EU. Recent polling this month is evenly split. If they're not solidly backing it now will they ever be?

Vadrefjorde

mike65 wrote: »

Norway oil reserves estimated at 12 billion. Estimated 84.3 trillion gas reserves left.

So they are worth more than a euro then