Comments by "Luredreier" (@Luredreier) on "Iceland Relationship with the European Union: How Iceland Almost Joined the EU - TLDR News" video.

I don't think the nordic region should be a part of the EU unless the EU is reformed into a more confederate form with long term confederate rather then federate ambitions. (I don't mind tighter integration like shared armies, taxation etc pr say but the power needs to come from a national level rather then a "federal" level with states having the option to join and leave individual parts of the integration as needed based on the elective process within each country) And there's issues where the policies clearly are not made by anyone with any idea about how things actually work on the ground... Fishing being one such case, the laws in this regard needs a major rework...
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Also EU policies on the area sucks.
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@gabmano4877 Unless the EU significantly improves its fishing policies joining will be a no option for nations that are mostly all about their coast and fisheries like Norway and Iceland. And the goal of making the EU a country in the future rather than a confederation isn't exactly appealing to mountain peoples and artic peoples who have other living conditions then the population centers in temperate low land urban areas in the heart of Europe and whose culture often is heavily influenced by the fight for independence from peoples living in low land areas. You see it all over the globe and throughout history, hill and mountain peoples just don't like that others (that knows nothing about the mountains) tells them what to do or how to live.
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Yeah... It's not that we don't have systems in place to take care of the fish here in Europe with quotas etc... It's just that there's loopholes etc that ends up leading to more damage being done then what is assumed by the quotas (and that the negotiations tends to grant just a little more quotas then the scientists recommend every time) As environmentally friendly as Europe is on land there's some serious issues with the EUs underwater policies...
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@dutchuncle3310 Look up the various nordic alphabets and you'll see that he's not the user of one of them.
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The issue isn't just sharing our waters with the EU (Norway is in a similar situation), but rather that EU fishery policy is a mess that's unsustainable. I don't know the details right now, but last time we here in Norway voted on joining the EU or not they only counted fish taken to shore in the quota and permitted dumping of fish in EU waters meaning that a lot of fish died without ever being taken ashore and counted against the quotas meant to stop overfishing. Obviously that's a big issue for nations like Norway and Iceland... It also doesn't help that the EU doesn't really take issues like uneven conditions into account for laws in a lot of cases. Post delivery has to be privatized even in nations where large parts of the nation lives in areas that's commercially unviable for such services as post delivery and railway services but where the profits from the profitable areas could help subsidize rural areas reducing the overall cost on the state. EU laws are often making assumptions that's only true in high population density areas, warmer climates or on flatter lands. Hence why Denmark and Sweden just about can justify joining but Norway and Iceland and Switzerland can't.
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Jacob L Countries like Iceland, Norway and Switzerland are not outside the EU because of "selfishness" but because of fundamental incompatibilities between the EU legal framework and what works in those areas.
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@Orbirik You're talking farming here, the thread started about the topic of *fishing*. But regarding farming, yes, that's why I'm in favor of tariffs rather then subsidies for countries like Norway or Iceland where honestly production is never going to be able to meet demand anyway but where some way of permitting the farms to increase their profit is required in order to keep them alive when facing competition from other countries. And yes, for those who believe in the "free market" just letting them go bust might be tempting but there's side effects to that. For instance, a lack of food security, in the case of a global food crises for whatever reason the countries that normally have a food surplus are going to cover their own needs first anyway in most cases. And the competition will be fierce for what remains of the food as we don't have much food stored anywhere on this planet for issues like running out of phosphorus or reduced farming yields due to climate change etc. Tariffs allows certain industries to be protected while still allowing non-native products to compete as the tariffs can be balanced in order to allow a equilibrium of supply and demand to be meet. Ideally of course the countries selling products into our country should be able to pocket the higher prices themselves though... Norway tries to do that by allowing a certain amount of goods to enter without any tariffs each year and then applies tariffs on anything above said quota. Also, tariffs for developing nations in say Africa is lower then vs for instance the EU (and countries like the Netherlands who has an advanced enough agricultural sector to out compete anyone)
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@bizu08 Trust me, whales are not *it*... For instance whaling is dying in Norway due to a lack of market for their products even within Norway... Whaling being allowed is mostly due to Norways whaling history and history of polar exploration etc... Honestly I'd be fine with us outlawing whaling here. Keeping it is more relevant in places like the Faero islands or Greenland where there's actually a firm cultural background for said whaling that I don't really feel that we have here in Norway or for that matter in Iceland... There the minority ethnic groups actually depended on whales for survival and a significant part of their food traditions and culture revolves around the whales. For Norway it's more about just the pride of having established whaling bases all over the artic and antartic region and having historically played such a huge role in that industry (and therefore in things like setting off parts of the industrial revolution that actually used to run on whale oil). There's also the same annoying ideas about the whole "whales is a resource and we have a right to make use of the resources within our waters" kind of silliness that most nations probably deal with... Oh, and the whole, Norway is kind of hunting crazy in general... A lot of parts of Norway is emptied out during the various local hunting seasons with villages looking like ghost towns because the villagers are out hunting moose or l or whatever... In the mind of a lot of Norwegians nature exists for us to use. It's the whole Lutheran christian idea that humans are stewards of earth but also have a god given right to use it kind of thing filtered through culture and some generations of secularism etc... So in that mindset we have a duty to "cull the herd" of animals to avoid overpopulation or disease, kill animals that's suffering, but also make use of the resources around us... As a vegetarian I obviously don't share these values... But that's the general gist of it as far as I can tell...
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@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Seriously... The EU is a project of solidarity that has ensured peace in Europe. It's definitively a good thing that it exists as it puts a stop to what would otherwise be a constant power conflict between the major European nations... Germany, Benelux and France most certainly belong in a union together although I think the push towards a federal model rather then a confederate model is a bit too hard even there. As for the idea of anyone being charged with treason? Like, seriously, are you real? They all worked within the legal and democratic framework of their individual nations. I'm against membership for my own nation and the other nordic countries because I think the EU is too dominated by people living in the high population density temperate lowlands who don't have much experience with rural arctic and mountainous conditions, nor with dealing with actual nature in the sea or on land and ensuring the continued survival of the fish species in our seas etc...
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@Kallikukurinn I don't think it's offensive to our relatives at all personally. Joining the EU could be positive, but the EU needs reform before it's suitable for us in Iceland (you) or Norway (me).
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