As soon as the EU decides to formally launch accession negotiations with Iceland, probably in March 2010, France will heavily scrutinise the stakes for two sectors - fisheries and the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP), said Michel Sallé, a French expert on Iceland.
"Iceland is not ready to accept the invasion of its coasts by foreign fishing boats," Sallé said, adding that Reykjavik does not want EU fishing quotas either. Fisheries represent 10 to 15% of the Nordic country's GDP and a quarter of its exports. But France is also struggling to safeguard the interests of its fishermen, who have been hit hard by the economic crisis, the expert noted.
As for agriculture, Iceland's 3,000 farmers are staunch opponents of the CAP, Sallé said, as they estimate that its introduction to the island will bring about a drop in local agricultural production of 40 to 50%.
However, Roland Blum, a politician from France's governing Union for a Popular Movement (UMP) party, said that EU membership would benefit Iceland's farmers as the Union would provide substantial aid to help remedy the country's difficult climate, and a wider diversity of products would be given advantageous treatment under the new CAP from 2013.
As for Germany, despite the fact that with 320,000 inhabitants Iceland is no bigger than the average German city, at least one major political party has shown little enthusiasm for Reykjavik's EU bid.
The right-wing CSU (Christian Social Union; the Bavarian sister party of Chancellor Angela Merkel’s Christian Democrats - CDU - and a member of the current coalition in Berlin) is sceptical of Iceland's accession, with some of its leaders arguing admitting the small bankrupt country would overstretch the EU. They also argue that it is not the EU's duty to "save" countries in trouble.
However, the CSU position remains the exception. During a workshop recently organised by EurActiv Germany, Iceland's Ambassador to Germany Ólafur Davíðsson explained that the country wants to join the EU so it can adopt the euro. Despite the crisis, Iceland will be a net contributor in the EU, albeit a tiny one, the ambassador argued.
German politician Alexander Graf Lambsdorff, deputy chairman of the liberal ALDE group in the European Parliament, told EurActiv Germany that he does not expect any problems to stand in the way of Iceland's rapid accession to the EU because the country has already adopted 80% of the European acquis.
But it is nevertheless necessary to reach a compromise on fisheries policy and to prepare well for accession, which could take "a couple of years anyway," Graf Lambsdorf added.
