"Clearly there is movement in Iceland," Rehn said. Up till now, the country had always been happy with its status outside the EU. But it began to reconsider its position after being hit badly by the financial and economic crises, which caused the loss of thousands of jobs.
Icelandic Prime Minister Geir Haarde has set up a commission to consider the possibility of EU membership, declaring that his country could start EU talks under the right circumstances.
If Iceland decided to apply for EU membership, the process may well be completed swiftly due the country's membership of the European Economic Area (EEA), Commission Rehn's office said. "Considering Iceland's already far-reaching economic integration with the EU, I would expect that accession negotiations can progress clearly much faster than with other countries that do not have such strong ties with the EU," Rehn's spokesperson Anna-Kaisa Itkonen told the BBC.
Rehn told EurActiv in an interview last month that the EEA could well serve as a "shortcut" in the negotiations, putting Iceland in a position to compete with Croatia to become the bloc's 28th member (EurActiv 21/11/08).
Meanwhile, Montenegro's government announced that it would submit its application next Monday. In recent progress reports, which EU leaders will adopt today, the Commission has criticised the country's sluggish reform process and excluded EU accession in the near future.
"Much more work is needed, including on the rule of law and institution building," Rehn said in a speech in Oslo yesterday (11 December).
However, the move by Montenegro, which was originally expected to occur earlier this year, is likely to encourage neighbours Serbia and Albania to follow suit, despite statements by French President Nicolas Sarkozy and others that no further enlargement would be possible without the Lisbon Treaty.
