Ahead of the referendum, the two sides held a televised debate where the Yes marketing campaign group was headed by Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir and the No marketing campaign was led by Guðrún Hafsteinsdóttir, chair of the opposition Independence Party.
Kristrún advised the viewers that Iceland was already properly built-in in the European Union, and turning into a member would be “one of the biggest risk-reducing steps we can take”.
She also made clear that a Yes vote did not essentially imply that Iceland would be a part of, and that if there was a No vote, the consequence would be revered.
Guðrún, meanwhile, burdened that the vote was not about whether Iceland should work properly with Europe: “We already do, and we want that to continue.”
Instead, she portrayed the referendum as a vote on whether Icelanders wished to hand “decision-making powers” to Brussels on fisheries, agriculture and their natural sources.
Although geopolitics kick-started the authorities’s determination to push for a return to EU talks, there has been little dialogue of it during the marketing campaign.
“It’s lower on the agenda than many would think,” says Hallgrimur Oddsson, director of EU-Iceland think-tank European Currents.
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