The Icelandic Progressive Party yesterday voted strongly in favour of supporting Iceland’s entry into membership talks with the European Union.
The Progressive Party made its decision at its annual conference, where over 40 people spoke during a four-hour-long debate. The decision makes the Progressives the second party in Iceland, after the Social Democrats, to publicly support EU membership.
The ruling Independence Party intends to hold a similar vote at its conference beginning on 29th January.
In a statement, the Progressive Party explained that it would support Icelandic entry into the European Union if personal and business rights were protected, especially in regard to fishing and agriculture; and if the accession talks were open and democratic. Icelandic would also have to become one of the EU’s official languages – although that would almost certainly happen anyway, as Luxembourgish (one of Luxembourg’s official languages) and Turkish (one of Cyprus’s official languages) are the only official languages not to be recognised by the EU at present.
The Progressive Party is not currently among Iceland’s three biggest political parties; but historically it has enjoyed strong and sustained support. Halldor Asgrimsson was a Progressive Party Prime Minister from 2004-2006.
[…] dell’autocritica per la strategia isolazionista perfino il Partito del Progresso operava una svolta in senso europeista. Nel frattempo però la situazione economica del paese migliorava molto […]
We don t want you in the EU. Since you always believed you were too special for it and since you keep killing whales and since you are all poor now, i would suggest you join the north pole.
I truly believe you can make it without joining the E.U. I’m from Portugal and I’ve lived in Iceland, I’ve seen your potentialities. You just need the right guys running the country. Don’t let them take your independency.
Performance yesterday in choosing new chairman shows why this party will staydown. It’s he.. wait no thats a mistake its actually him.
Lack of principlals shows exactly why they now approve of EU memberstatehood and why they are in politikal wilderness.
Do you not think?
[…] Die oppositionelle Fortschrittspartei habe am 16.01. nach vierstündiger Debatte mit über 40 Rednern mit überwältigender Mehrheit beschlossen, EU-Beitrittsverhandlungen zu unterstützen. Damit ist sie die zweite Partei, die dies öffentlich unterstützt, nachdem bereits die mitregierenden Sozialdemokraten entsprechend abgestimmt haben. Die größte Regierungspartei, die Unabhängigkeitspartei von Premierminister Haarde, plant eine ähnliche Abstimmung auf ihrem Parteitag am 29.01. Den Bericht von IceNews (auf Englisch) gibt es hier. […]
We now have a new Glitnir, new KB, new Landsbanki and now new Progressive party, the Progressive party is the Indepenence partys sidekick,
they are the silent partner in governments formed by the 2 partys, the progressive party is supposed to pick up the votes the Independence party will loose in the next election and this is a part of the scheeme, it will be no surprize to me when they change there mind and form a government with the independence party, hope no one is dumb enough to trust the Progressive party or imagine something has changed.
http://mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2009/01/11/esb_myndi_stjorna_hafsvaedinu/
No problem with the EU taking care of the fishing thing. Look how they took care of Malta!
[…] Senterpartiet, med velgere hovedsakelig utenfor Reykjavik og med tilknytning til primærnæringene, skiftet standpunkt til EU i […]
I hope you will join us very soon! I’m from Milano (Italy), and I always wanted to come to visit Iceland: maybe next year after graduation I will… and who knows, maybe I will not have the necessity to change my euros. est europa nunc unita! ^_^ bye!