Hans-Gert Pöttering was pissed off when beginning of Ferbruary Olli Rehn, Responsible for Enlargement wanted to talk about Iceland becoming a member of the European Union. According to Pöttering, it was not the right moment to discuss about this, as there are things that are more important, the Lissabon treaty, for example.
This is an example of how open the decision making process is for the moment. If there’s no freedom to speak about things that actually are important in the future, how can we proceed with the project we’re in? If someone has already decided what to discuss about and what to do this year, next year, and after that, I hope they’d tell everybody about it.
It really is a shame that not everybody is heard in the European Union. Some countries are more powerful than others, and some people can tell others which are the themes to talk about and which are not.
“All European nations that meet the requirements of democracy and legislation and executes them in reality, can apply to be a member of the EU. Iceland falls under this analysis better than the Balkan nations for instance,” said Olli Rehn in an interview with Helsinki Sanomat.
In Finland, the Prime Minister Matti Vanhanen talked about the two nordic countries’ (Iceland and Norway) possible membership in the EU already half a year ago and Olli Rehn has talked about it before, so I don’t see why this shouldn’t be discussed at the European level. And I’m sure the people in Iceland would like this to be discussed as well. But no, we can’t talk about things like that in EU. Not right now!
No wonder that people find EU to be something they can’t say anything about.
Is this the way EU is helping others in times of crisis?
Now I would say everybody is going to be pissed off with this kind of policy. Read more about Pöttering’s visit in Finland.
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The problem with Iceland, of course, is that they only want to join the EU because they failed on their own. Their economy is shattered, through their own shortsighted behaviour - both individually and as a nation. Now, rather than dig in, survive the crisis and do better next time, they ask Europe to come and bail out their standard of living.
Yes, there’s only 300,000 of them, and it wouldn’t be that much of a burden on the EU, and it would be great publicity, not to mention another foothold for the EU in Arctic policy, but you can’t really fault people for thinking “tough luck, shouldn’t have been so arrogant earlier”.
You’re absolutely right, but maybe we should see this as an opportunity to get them with us