Nearly 50% of Icelanders would like Iceland to complete its assession talks with the European Union, according to a survey conducted by Fréttablaðið.
Iceland’s authorities recently announced that they were going to take a pause in assession talks with the EU, which began in July 2010. RÚV reports that a new survey shows some fairly surprising results about the attitude of the average Icelander towards the EU.
Respondents were asked, “How would you like to see the reconvening of EU talks conducted?” They were then given three options to choose from: complete talks and then submit the general agreement to public referendum, withdraw the accession application altogether, or continue the pause in talks until a public referendum decides whether or not to continue them.
Of these choices, the largest portion – 48.5% – supported the idea of completing talks and putting the agreement up for referendum. 36% said they wanted to withdraw the application completely, and 15% said they believed talks should only be continued if a public referendum supported them.
The results are surprising in light of the fact that only last October, 68% of respondents to another poll said they were against joining the EU.
The latest poll was conducted by the newspaper Fréttablaðið and television station Stöð 2. 800 people were contacted and of those, 78% participated.
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