Iceland votes Saturday on reopening EU talks under the shadow of Greenland

Icelanders vote on Saturday on a single question: should the country resume accession talks with the European Union. The referendum is advisory. Any treaty would still need a second vote before Iceland could join.

About 270,000 people are eligible. Polls published this week split the country almost in half. A Maskína survey for Vísir on 26 August put Yes at 51.3 percent and No at 48.7 percent among those with a view. RÚV reported a separate reading that put No ahead at 51.6 percent. Gallup sat in the same band.

Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir brought the vote forward from a 2027 deadline after Donald Trump spent more than a year saying the United States needed Greenland. He has mixed up Iceland and Greenland in public remarks, including at Davos. Iceland has no armed forces of its own.

Fish, the euro and the Arctic

The campaign on the ground is still mostly about money. Opponents say EU membership would put Icelandic fisheries under Brussels and tie the króna to the euro. Supporters say a small island sitting on the GIUK gap cannot treat security as a separate file from trade.

Frostadóttir told AFP the ballot commits Iceland to nothing. "This is an opportunity, it's not a final decision," she said. If Yes wins, Ursula von der Leyen is expected in Greenland on 6 and 7 September and is rumoured to add a stop in Reykjavik.

Iceland applied more than a decade ago. Talks were frozen in 2013. The Commission has said the old application remains valid. A Yes on Saturday would reopen the file. A No would park it again.