European Commissioner Warns of Looming Labor Shortage, Calls for Increased Migration
European Commissioner for Internal Affairs, Ylva Johansson, has highlighted the pressing need for increased labor migration in the European Union
Iceland is planning to try again to withdraw its application to join the EU, Prime Minister Sigmundur David Gunnlaugsson has said.
“Participating in EU talks isn’t really valid anymore,” Gunnlaugsson said as quoted by the Reykjav?k Grapevine.
The EU accession negotiations are “at square one as all the work on it that had been carried out before was in fact obsolete,” Iceland’s mbl.is media outlet quoted the prime minister as saying on Sunday.
Iceland applied to join the EU in the wake of its financial crisis in July 2009. The European Commission issued a favourable response to the application in February 2010 and formal negotiations started in July the same year.
However, membership talks stalled following April 2013elections, which brought to power Gunnlaugsson's centrist Progress Party and the conservative Independence Party. When Progress Party’s Gunnlaugsson became prime minister the following month, he froze accession talks with the EU, largely because of the fish catch quotas which the European Commission wants to impose - a move Iceland’s fishing industry opposes.
The first attempt to formally withdraw Iceland’s membership application was made last year. It ended in public protests and calls to hold a national referendum on the issue. Nevertheless, an anti-EU membership resolution will shortly be presented to Iceland’s parliament.
The European Union accounts for two-thirds of Iceland’s trade turnover. The Nordic country, which has no voting rights in the EU, is member of the European Economic Area (EEA), the European Free Trade Association (EFTA) and the EU’s Schengen borderless area.
US Vice President JD Vance delivered a critical speech at the Munich Security Conference
US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth stated that Europe cannot indefinitely rely on the US military presence
The NATO defense ministers' meeting in Brussels and the Munich Security Conference have drawn significant attention this week, with US President Donald Trump's approach to Ukraine and Russia
The European Parliament has reiterated its refusal to recognize the self-proclaimed authorities of Georgia
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The European Commission has referred Bulgaria, along with Spain, Hungary, the Netherlands, Austria, Portugal, and Finland, to the Court of Justice of the European Union for failing to transpose
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