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Iceland drops bid for EU membership

Xinhua, March 13, 2015 Adjust font size:

The Icelandic government announced Thursday that it would not restart accession negotiations with the European Union (EU), dropping the country's bid for membership of the 28-nation bloc.

The Icelandic Ministry of Foreign Affairs said in a statement that Foreign Minister Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson sent a letter to his Latvian counterpart Edgars Rinkevics, notifying that the Icelandic government had decided not to resume accession talks with the EU.

Latvia currently holds the rotating presidency of the Council of the EU.

The government considered that Iceland was no longer a candidate country and requested the EU to act in accordance with this fact from now on, Sveinsson said in the letter.

The decision "came after extensive communications between the Icelandic government and the EU over the past weeks," said the statement.

Sveinsson also expressed his desire to continue strengthening cooperation between Iceland and the EU.

Iceland applied to join the EU in 2009 after it was hit by the global economic crisis, and formal negotiations began in 2010.

However, the negotiations were called off when the current center-right government took power in 2013. Endi