Islandijos politinė ir ekonominė integracija į Europos Sąjungą: perspektyvos ir kliūtys

• Main Author: Žiupka, Mantas
• Other Authors: Šumskas, Gintaras
• Format: Master Thesis
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: Institutional Repository of Vytautas Magnus University 2017
• Subjects: Iceland; European Union; integration
• Online Access: http://vdu.oai.elaba.lt/documents/15152090.pdf; http://vdu.lvb.lt/VDU:ELABAETD15152090&prefLang=en_US

Iceland is distinguished by quite high integration into the European Union due to its membership in European Economic Area, Schengen Area, European Free Trade Association, and North Atlantic Treaty Organization. With time the possibility to join the European Union has seduced many countries, which were endeavoring at stability, prosperity, safety, personal freedoms, combination of open market and open societies; however Iceland had not expressed its desire to join the European Union until 2009, while it rejected the idea soon enough, in 2013. It will be attempted to review the Icelandic EU integration processes and their changes from the theoretical and practical perspectives in this work and at the same time to understand the reasons, which had critical impact on Iceland’s choice about membership in the European Union. In the beginning of the work the traditional provisions of the theories of European integration are examined. They indicate the main integration reasons, actors, variables and potential obstacles. The modifications of these theories are discussed, as they not only supplement the former provisions, but also expand their application possibilities. It is determined in the work that the theoretically most important incentives of European integration have been arising from economical preferences, which direct impact is affected by the authorities and subjection of public identities into the political fight on various levels. To expand the topic of authorities and political fight, the features of the Icelandic party system and factors, which have resulted historically in numerous representation of Euro-skeptical parties in the Parliament and predominant position in the governmental coalitions, are analyzed. The more thorough analysis of parliamentary and governmental changes in the period 2009-2015 allows making a conclusion that the application submitted by Iceland in 2009 for membership in the EU was the result of the electoral success of Social Democratic Alliance that had been supporting the idea of the EU project for long time, while the active policy against integration started after the Parliament’s election after 2013 is the consequence of majority of Euro-skeptical parties in the coalition. The remaining chapters and their parts are used to discuss the meaning of present economic relations and agreements for European integration processes in Iceland, to determine the problems of European Economic Area, and consequences of global financial crisis on the Icelandic economics, citizens and formation of national interests. Moreover, the advantages and disadvantages of the national Icelandic currency are discussed, as they act as economic incentives and obstacles on the path of integration to the EU. The last part is used to investigate the level of economic incentives consisting of socio-economic, financial and trade dimensions, in 2007-2015, and it is stated that the level of economic incentives correlates with the European integration processes inside the country.