The Daily Populous Monday February 23rd, 2026 evening edition
Authored by politico.eu and submitted by Ambitious_Jaguar1703

The Icelandic parliament is expected to announce the date of the ballot within the next few weeks, according to the two people who were granted anonymity to speak freely. The move comes after a flurry of visits by EU politicians to Iceland and by Icelandic politicians to Brussels. If Icelanders vote yes, they could join the EU before any other candidate country, one of the people said.

“The conversation on enlargement is shifting,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Marta Kos, who met with Iceland’s Foreign Minister Þorgerður Katrín Gunnarsdóttir last month in Brussels, told POLITICO. “It is increasingly about security, about belonging and about preserving our ability to act in a world of competing spheres of influence. This concerns all Europeans.”

European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen met with Iceland’s Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir in Brussels last month and said their partnership “offers stability and predictability in a volatile world.”

In March 2015, Reykjavík asked to no longer be considered an EU candidate country. | Halldor Kolbeins/AFP via Getty Images

Von der Leyen, who visited Iceland last July, also met with Frostadóttir during a Nordic Council meeting in Stockholm last fall and praised her country for strengthening its cooperation with the EU. Von der Leyen is set to visit the Arctic region again in March.

The conversation around deepening ties with Iceland and potentially even resuming accession negotiations began even before Trump returned to office last year, with an EU official saying Brussels had already been paying more attention to the strategically important country.

But escalating threats from the U.S., among them a joke by Billy Long, Trump’s nominee for ambassador to Iceland, that the country would become the 52nd U.S. state and that he would be governor, have increased the urgency.

drtywater on February 23rd, 2026 at 05:11 UTC »

Honestly bigger thing is being on the Euro. Their currency can naturally be unstable due to its small economy size. Too many exports or too many imports or another banking crisis could cause an issue. Being on Euro provides stability. For Iceland its a no brainer.

pwiegers on February 23rd, 2026 at 04:56 UTC »

Well, Trump is succeeding in bringing countries together - in defense against the USA :-(

Large_banana_hammock on February 23rd, 2026 at 04:54 UTC »

Trying to get shit sorted before trump realizes they exist (and/or confuses the country with Greenland)