Growing Opposition To EU Accession

Close to 60% of Icelanders are opposed to accession to the European Union, according to a new Gallup poll.

RÚV reports that 59.1% of Icelanders are against joining the EU, while 40.9% were in favour.

There was a spectrum to these responses, however. 15.9% said they would definitely vote in favour of accession if the matter was put to a vote today, while 25% said they probably would vote in favour. At the same time, 36.7% said they would definitely vote against joining the EU, while 22.4% said they would probably do the same.

These results show growing opposition from the time of the previous Gallup poll on the subject, taken last August. At that time, 50.1% of respondents said they were opposed to Iceland joining the EU, 34.2% supported it, and 15.6% were neither for nor against it.

Where demographics are concerned, the sex and location of respondents made little difference, although the youngest and oldest respondents were the most likely to be opposed. The lower the income, the results showed, the more likely someone was to be opposed to accession.

But the biggest differences lay along party lines, as it has many times before. Voters from the Progressive Party and the Independence Party were the most opposed to accession, with 77% and 90% of these voters opposed to joining the EU, respectively. At the same time, as per usual, Social Democrat voters were overwhelmingly in favour of accession, with 92% supporting it.