Icelanders to Vote on Resuming European Union Membership Talks
3 sources across 3 countries · Latvia · United Kingdom · United States
Who reported this
- Novaya Gazeta Europe
- Reuters
- Bloomberg
What the colours mean
- Left
- Centre-left
- Centre
- Centre-right
- Right
- A hatched block means the outlet is affiliated with, or controlled by, a state.
Political lean describes where an outlet sits within the politics of its own country. It is never a position on a single global scale.
Political lean is comparable inside one country and not across them, which is why the bar groups by country first. Publicly funded broadcasters are not marked as state-linked.
The owner of each outlet is listed as a matter of record, not as a judgement about the outlet.
Iceland will hold a referendum on August 29 to decide whether to resume membership negotiations with the European Union. A recent poll conducted by Maskina for Visir shows a narrow majority of 51.3 percent in favor of resuming talks, while 48.7 percent are against. This represents a decrease in the lead for the yes side, which was 6.2 percentage points in June.
The current left center coalition government, led by Prime Minister Kristrun Frostadottir, announced the vote following a resolution passed by the Althing parliament on May 28. If the referendum passes, Iceland will send negotiators to Brussels for the first time since 2013. If it fails, the government has promised to stop attempts to restart the process. A second vote would be required to finalize membership after any negotiations are completed.
Iceland previously applied for membership in 2009 following a financial crisis. Those talks were frozen in 2013, and the country requested in 2015 that Brussels no longer consider it a candidate. Center left framing suggests that geopolitical uncertainty and the desire for economic stability are driving the current push for membership. Center framing focuses on the narrow polling margins and the high stakes of the upcoming vote.
How each side framed it
- Centre-left
- This outlet framed the event as a strategic response to geopolitical instability and a search for economic stability.
- Centre
- These outlets focused on the statistical narrowness of the polling and the binary outcome of the referendum.
Sources
100% of the statements in this article were traced back to the source articles listed above.