The incoming administration of Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, which takes over on Sunday, also said it will set up a panel of experts to look into the advantages and disadvantages of retaining the Icelandic crown over adopting the Euro.
Background: Iceland is already a member of the European Economic Area, the European Free Trade Association and the Schengen border control area, and has sent an application for EU membership in 2009.
Accession negotiations proceeded at a careful pace, until the application was withdrawn in 2013 after a change of government.
Discussions about holding a referendum (to decide about restarting negotiations) have been ongoing since 2017.
It’s already a pretty cashless society (at least it was as a tourist) so the switch to the Euro would be pretty easy.
Discussions on retaining ISK over the euro are not based on how difficult it is to swap the currency or change systems that use cash.
It’s about retaining control over monetary policy, which is centrally decided in the eurozone.
I wish the US could join the EU.
What makes you think they would want the US to join?
Making the world a better place by holding the US to higher standards.
What a name, “the daughter of frost”!
Welcome if you chose to join!
Technically, the daughter of Frostí, which is a recognised masculine name in Iceland. And also her father’s name: they don’t use family names in Iceland (other than about 7 surnames grandfathered from the Danish colonial era, but those are uncommon), and people have one or two given names and a patronym, a system which has so far scaled well enough for Iceland.
Fun fact: Germany recently re-introduced patronyms. Technically only applies to Frisians but at least in my state being Frisian is as simple (as far as the state is concerned) as claiming that you are so it’s a free for all. So there’s again going to be Knut Jansen, son of Jan Peters, son of Peter Larsen. To modernise the whole thing also matronyms are allowed.
Yeah, I saw the í but well.
It’s like the old swedish minister of justice, Gun Hellsvik (hellsweek).
Do they always switch the last name in Iceland? Like many places has “son of” like Svenson in Sweden, but it became a family name so it doesn’t change any more.
Hope they don’t adopt the Euro. Maintaining currency sovereignty is vital to being able to actually run an effective government. Without the ability to print money they’re forced to “balance the budget” and that always means austerity.
Awful take.
Instead of printing money, they should be raising taxes on their wealthiest.
Printing money does raise taxes on the wealthy. Inflation is a tax on every person with currency. If you print money and give it to the poor to make up for the real value they’re losing to inflation, the tax falls on the wealthy.
Err… the thing about printing money and giving it to the poor is that the wealthy people who own the companies will raise prices to overcompensate for the increase in currency available.
I keep saying: inflation is how the ruling class recoups any gains the working class has made, with interest.
Prices are set by the market. They can only charge as much as people will pay.
Obviously currency sovereignty isn’t the only tool to redistribute wealth, but it’s one of them! Do you not understand how much austerity is caused directly by governments not being able to print money to fund the government?
If a country using the Euro wants to build public housing, it has to raise taxes or cut spending. If a country with currency sovereignty wants to build public housing, they just print money.
The thing with printing money in Iceland is that a) they proved that they think it grows on trees and b) there’s no trees in Iceland.
Ask Greece how great it is being unable to print money. Or Kosovo. Or Montenegro. Or Spain.
Literally the only benefit to being part of the Eurozone is that tourists don’t need to exchange their currency. That’s it. Otherwise it’s just giving up sovereignty to France and Germany. During financial crisis it’s even worse, it basically makes the government unable to respond to rapid shifts in the market and forces them to slash public spending to pay for bailouts.
Iceland wouldn’t jail bankers if it was in the Eurozone. Guaranteed.
Or, you know, you could have mechanisms in place to do it without currency manipulation. Some countries have done that since before the Euro – the Euro inherited its price stability mandate from the German Mark. Many countries adopting the Euro then said, “well, looks like we’re doing it the German way now”. And they did. Countries like Kosovo are doing it without even being an Eurozone member, Bosnia and Herzegovina is doing it, the Convertible Mark changed its peg from German Mark to Euro.
Tons of countries, large and small, strong and weak, all voluntarily choosing a stable currency over being able to inflate yourself out of nasty situations. Maybe, just maybe, it’s not actually necessary to have that capacity, there’s other ways to deal with things, and having a stable currency is overall beneficial.
And, seriously, fuck Greece. Also fuck the Troika which fucked up debt restructuring but there’s not a single thing about the Greek tragedy that wasn’t caused by the Greek government being absolutely irresponsible with money. Maybe, next time, don’t spend money on useless BS while you’re already neck-deep in debt.
And being able to deflate your currency wouldn’t really have helped because do you really think anyone would lend money to Greece in Drachme.
Maybe don’t use “Iceland” and “slowly warming” in what seems to be a positive story?
Wasn’t Iceland and Greenland deliberately named liked this (the oppositeof how they actually are), to cause confusion to medieval sailors? Or is this just an urban legend?
I don’t know if the Greenland thing is an urban legend, but Greenland was much greener when the Vikings got there because it was during the Medieval Warm Period.
You get downmodded but I felt the same way.
At a glance one might read they are literally warming up and want to join the EU for help.
Sure, if you completely skip every other word in the paragraph and have the reading comprehension of a four year old.
Does not matter. Any good writer would notice how it can be misinterpreted at a glance.
