COPENHAGEN, March 6 (Reuters) – Iceland’s government proposed on Friday to hold a referendum on August 29 on resuming talks to join the European Union, public broadcaster RUV reported, citing Foreign Minister Katrin Gunnarsdottir.
Reykjavik in 2013 abandoned EU membership talks after four years of negotiations, but a rise in the cost of living and the war in Ukraine in recent years rekindled the island nation’s interest in joining the bloc, polls have shown.
Repeated threats by U.S. President Donald Trump to annex Greenland, located between Iceland and the United States, also made the question of EU membership more pressing for the North Atlantic country, home to almost 400,000 people.
(Reporting by Louise Rasmussen and Anna Ringstrom, editing by Terje Solsvik)
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