{"id":1032455,"date":"2026-08-30T06:02:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-30T06:02:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1032455\/"},"modified":"2026-08-30T06:02:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-30T06:02:15","slug":"vote-count-under-way-in-icelands-knife-edge-eu-referendum-elections-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/1032455\/","title":{"rendered":"Vote count under way in Iceland\u2019s knife-edge EU referendum | Elections News"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"article__subhead\">Iceland\u2019s leadership has promised to honour whatever the country\u2019s people decide.<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"avatar\" tabindex=\"-1\" aria-hidden=\"true\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/author\/al_jazeera_staff_150119130629458\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/1788069735_707_2017-06-08T131939Z_1189275883_RC11B0FE7F20_RTRMADP_3_GULF-QATAR-JAZEERA-1714943623.jpg\"   aria-hidden=\"true\"\/><\/a><\/p>\n<p>Published On 29 Aug 202629 Aug 2026<\/p>\n<p>Vote counting is under way in Iceland\u2019s referendum on resuming membership negotiations with the European Union.<\/p>\n<p>Voting stations closed at 10pm local time on Saturday (22:00 GMT), and partial figures started emerging early on Sunday.<\/p>\n<p>Recommended Stories list of 3 itemsend of list<\/p>\n<p>Based on the initial 152,000 of an eligible 270,000 votes, 50.1 percent were against the government restarting talks with Brussels, according to broadcaster RUV, the Reuters news agency reported.<\/p>\n<p>That is a swing from an earlier Gallup poll, which gave the \u201cyes\u201d a slight lead.<\/p>\n<p>A final count is expected at about midday on Sunday, as counting up votes in the island country is a difficult challenge, with ballots coming from towns and rural polling stations by plane, boat, and car.<\/p>\n<p>The referendum does not have exit polls, and ballot counting only began once voting stations closed.<\/p>\n<p>Pre-referendum polling hinted at <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/news\/2026\/8\/29\/why-is-iceland-considering-joining-the-eu\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">how close the vote would be<\/a>,\u00a0with different surveys putting either side narrowly ahead, but none straying more than a few points from an even 50\/50 split.<\/p>\n<p>The vote comes 13 years after Iceland, then led by a Eurosceptic government, paused EU accession talks.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cThis is a great day. We\u2019ve been waiting for this for years to be able to have a vote,\u201d Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir said after casting her vote.<\/p>\n<p>The country is currently governed by the pro-EU Social Democratic Alliance, which called the vote and promised to honour whatever the Icelandic public decides.<\/p>\n<p>If Icelanders vote \u201cyes\u201d, the country would likely start years of negotiations with Brussels to hammer out membership terms. It would then hold a second referendum on whether to formally become part of the EU.<\/p>\n<p>A Foreign Ministry memo estimated that accession talks could start by the end of 2026 and take 18 to 24 months if the country votes to reopen talks.<\/p>\n<p>Security, the relatively sluggish Icelandic economy, fishing rights, and the future of the Icelandic currency, the krona, have all been significant themes in the run-up to the vote.<\/p>\n<p>Iceland first applied to join the EU in 2009 amid <a href=\"https:\/\/www.aljazeera.com\/economy\/2017\/3\/12\/iceland-to-lift-capital-controls-from-financial-crisis\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">a financial crisis<\/a> that hit the country\u2019s small, exposed economy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Iceland\u2019s leadership has promised to honour whatever the country\u2019s people decide. Published On 29 Aug 202629 Aug 2026&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1032456,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5],"tags":[90,440,24920,50,103],"class_list":["post-1032455","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-world","tag-elections","tag-europe","tag-iceland","tag-news","tag-world"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117182947602403617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032455","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1032455"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1032455\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1032456"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1032455"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1032455"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1032455"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}