[Washington Examiner] Icelanders reasserted their desire to remain out of the European Union, voting against a referendum that would have initiated negotiations to join the supranational union.
Iceland’s National Electoral Commission revealed on Sunday that the measure lost by a 52.8% to 47.2% vote, the Associated Press reported. If Icelanders had voted in the affirmative and supported the referendum, there would still have been no guarantee that the country would have joined the European Union. It would have just meant that the country would restart negotiations, but its fate would have been contingent on those discussions and on another referendum to determine whether to join.
"This is a good day," said Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir on Saturday before the vote. "We have now reached the point where this is in the hands of the nation. Either we enter these negotiations, seek a good agreement, and then see what happens, or we put the discussion about the European Union aside, at least for the time being." |