The Nordic Countries and the European Security and Defence Policy

20. Iceland and the European Security andDefence PolicyAlyson J. K. Bailes and Baldur ThorhallssonI. Introduction: Iceland as a special caseIceland, a republic on the extreme north-west periphery of Europe with a populationof about 300 000, has a sui generis relationship with the concept of Europeandefence. As to the term ‘European’, Iceland is the only Nordic state (andone of very few in Europe) never to have applied for membership of the EuropeanUnion. As to ‘defence’, Iceland has refrained from establishing armedforces throughout its existence as a modern independent state since 1944.The functional solution that Iceland has found for its relations with the Europeanintegration process is membership of the European Economic Area (EEA),to which it belongs together with Norway, Liechtenstein and the EU, 1 andparticipation in the EU’s Schengen border control system. 2 The EEA, inessence, brings Iceland within the scope of application of the EU’s SingleMarket but involves it in no more than a ‘dialogue’ relationship with the EU’sCommon Foreign and Security Policy and does not, of itself, oblige Iceland totake any particular part in the European Security and Defence Policy.The functional solution that Iceland has found for its defence is a directdefence agreement with the USA, 3 signed in 1951, combined with Iceland’smembership of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. The US forces stationedat the Keflavík base in south-western Iceland, which form the Iceland DefenseForce, are seen as guaranteeing the necessary deterrent and (initial) responsecapacities for Iceland’s protection in a crisis, while in peacetime they provideair defence cover. Iceland has, of course, its own police force, coastguard andemergency rescue services, but it depends a good deal in practice on the US1 Agreement on the European Economic Area, EFTA Secretariat, Geneva, May 1992, URL . The EEA Agreement, signed by the then member states of theEuropean Free Trade Area and the EU, came into force in 1994.2 Iceland and Norway were given the opportunity to participate in Schengen in view of the Nordic PassportUnion, the application of which had been safeguarded by the terms of Denmark’s, Finland’s andSweden’s accessions to the EU. An agreement on Norway’s and Iceland’s participation in Schengenfollowing its full incorporation in the EU treaty structure was concluded in May 1999. ‘Agreement concludedby the Council of the European Union and the Republic of Iceland and the Kingdom of Norwayconcerning the latters’ association with the implementation, application and development of the Schengenacquis—Final Act, Brussels, 18 May 1999’, Official Journal of the European Communities, vol. L 176(10 July 1999), URL , pp. 36–62.3 The text of the Defense Agreement between the United States and the Republic of Iceland pursuant tothe North Atlantic Treaty, signed on 5 May 1951, is available at URL .