The Reykjavík Grapevine’s Iceland Roundup brings you the top news with a healthy dash of local views. In this episode, Grapevine publisher Jón Trausti Sigurðarson is joined by Heimildin editor Aðalsteinn Kjartansson and Grapevine sales manager Örn Elvar Arnarson to round up the stories making headlines in recent weeks.
On the docket this week:
In a long, rambling speech in Davos last Wednesday, U.S. President Donald Trump repeated his demands for territorial sovereignty over Greenland, repeatedly confused Iceland and Greenland, wrongly claimed that China doesn’t use windmills, talked about the U.S. housing market, and generally aired numerous grievances in a flat, tired tone. After the speech, he met with NATO chief Mark Rutte and then announced that a deal had been struck over Greenland. What that deal entailed was never disclosed, and it appears that Trump secured no concessions from Europe regarding the island.
Nonetheless, his demands have fired up a debate in Iceland over what the country’s defense strategy should be: whether Iceland should align itself more closely with Europe, or continue to nominally rely on the U.S. for defense, even though that reliance now seems wishful thinking at best.
The Centre Party, along with former President of Iceland Ólafur Ragnar Grímsson, has promoted the idea that Iceland should make a greater effort to court the U.S., while most other political figures have either remained silent on the issue or gestured toward Iceland moving closer to Europe by applying for EU membership. A referendum on EU membership is scheduled to be held in the spring of 2027.
A speech also delivered at Davos by Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney suggests a third option: one in which so-called “middle powers” align with one another;
The news over the weekend from Minneapolis, where ICE killed a second U.S. citizen in three weeks, keeps up the trend of the U.S. descending into chaos, further raising questions about how countries such as Iceland should tackle their relationship with a country that, in a manner reminiscent of some South American dictatorships in the last century, uses paramilitary forces to kill its own citizens;
The Social Democrats held primaries for the upcoming municipal elections in Reykjavík this weekend. The primaries saw current mayor Heiða Björg Hilmisdóttir lose her bid to lead the Social Democrats to former Independence Party member Pétur Marteinsson. The latter had the support of Social Democratic chairman and PM Kristrún Frostadóttir, and he won by a significant margin. Heiða Björg has not confirmed that she’ll accept the second place on the list;
Two establishments in Skeifan in Reykjavík, Istanbul Market and BK Kjúklingur, or actually the owners of said restaurants,are feuding and threatening legal action because the owner of BK Kjúklingur tends to park his car across the street, in front of Istanbul Market;
The town of Grindavík, formerly home to 3,700 people, currently has 900 legal residents, but only 400 people actually residing in the town, demonstrating the effects repeated eruptions in the area have had on habitation. The town’s future still remains somewhat uncertain, with another eruption predicted in the coming months;
A man, sleeping naked in his bed, was woken by a black-clad individual who stabbed him. After fighting the intruder off and throwing him out of his house, he described the man to the police. The black-clad man turned out to have a toy gun and a knife on him, along with drugs tucked in bubble-gum wrappings. It also turned out that the assailant has a child with the stabbed man’s daughter.
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