{"id":276462,"date":"2025-07-20T04:14:20","date_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:14:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/276462\/"},"modified":"2025-07-20T04:14:20","modified_gmt":"2025-07-20T04:14:20","slug":"icelanders-support-reboot-of-eu-accession-talks-foreign-minister-says-politico","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/276462\/","title":{"rendered":"Icelanders support reboot of EU accession talks, foreign minister says \u2013 POLITICO"},"content":{"rendered":"

Defense boost, but no army<\/strong><\/p>\n

Iceland, as the only NATO member<\/a> with no army but with a strategically important location in the North Atlantic, occupies a unique position in the alliance, especially as U.S. President Donald Trump pressures<\/a> members to bump up their military spending.<\/p>\n

While there are \u201cno current plans\u201d to build up a standing army, \u00a0Iceland is \u201cvery serious on strengthening our defense cooperation,\u201d said Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir, who is also responsible for the country\u2019s new defense strategy<\/a>.<\/p>\n

She added that Iceland, which currently hosts NATO exercises and provides infrastructure and other support,\u00a0wants to \u201cbe a respected and reliable ally, both in NATO and also \u2026 with the EU.\u201d<\/p>\n

The incoming defense strategy will include \u201cmore support to allied operations out of Iceland,\u201d Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir reported, including cyber defense and strengthening domestic capabilities such as the national coast guard. The country\u2019s parliament is to agree on the content of the strategy by autumn.<\/p>\n

In the meantime, satisfying a NATO ask<\/a> to spend 1.5 percent of its GDP on defense-related goals is the country’s \u201cmain objective,\u201d Gunnarsd\u00f3ttir said.<\/p>\n

Washington calling<\/strong><\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s threats to annex Greenland<\/a>, another Arctic island with strategic positioning for defense, are setting the tone for Iceland’s future referendum, with the country\u2019s leader saying she doesn\u2019t want her compatriots to join the EU out of fear<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Defense boost, but no army Iceland, as the only NATO member with no army but with a strategically…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":276463,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5174],"tags":[3971,6215,473,32,35,728,2000,299,5187,1699,366,7059,6084,2597,104313,809,5111,46,9891,8720,811,479,1201,1219,49,1220,771],"class_list":{"0":"post-276462","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-eu","8":"tag-agriculture","9":"tag-cooperation","10":"tag-defense","11":"tag-donald-trump","12":"tag-energy","13":"tag-environment","14":"tag-eu","15":"tag-europe","16":"tag-european","17":"tag-european-union","18":"tag-greenland","19":"tag-iceland","20":"tag-infrastructure","21":"tag-military","22":"tag-military-exercises","23":"tag-negotiations","24":"tag-parliament","25":"tag-policy","26":"tag-referendum","27":"tag-resilience","28":"tag-security","29":"tag-tariffs","30":"tag-trade","31":"tag-trade-war","32":"tag-united-states","33":"tag-ursula-von-der-leyen","34":"tag-war"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114883622574623633","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276462","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=276462"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/276462\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/276463"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=276462"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=276462"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=276462"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}