00:00Iceland will be voting in a referendum on Saturday on whether to reopen membership talks with the European Union.
00:07The ballot is not a vote on membership and any accession treaty would require a second referendum.
00:15A narrow majority of Icelanders support restarting negotiations according to a new opinion poll, down slightly from the previous survey.
00:24In the 1970s, Iceland won a series of confrontations with the United Kingdom and half a century later, the fear
00:31of losing control of its waters and its fishing industry, which is the foundation of the island's economy, is at
00:38the heart of the referendum.
00:39For many, the vote boils down to a trade-off where the lower interest rates and a seat at Europe's
00:46table are worth ceding some control over the fisheries and self-determination that defying Iceland's independence since it broke away
00:54from Denmark eight decades ago.
00:56Public debate ahead of the vote is deeply rooted in fishing rights, but now also focusing on the cost of
01:02living and US President Donald Trump's threats to acquire neighbouring Greenland, which has raised questions over Iceland's own defences.
01:10Fisheries remain central to Iceland's economy and identity alike, alongside aluminium and tourism.
01:16Iceland sits on a geopolitical bottleneck, straddling the so-called geo-gap between Greenland, Iceland and Britain that NATO has
01:24long treated as a crucial doorway for watching Russian naval movements toward the open ocean.
01:30The country has no army of its own and its defence rests on NATO membership and a bilateral agreement with
01:36Washington signed in 1951.
