EU enlargement chief looks wistfully to Iceland - by Daniel Dombey
Beset with problems over the European Union's planned expansion to the south, Olli Rehn, the man responsible for European Union enlargement, is looking north.
Iceland, the country with an overheated economy and a growing interest in EU-style stability, is in his sights. The Lutheran island of 300,000 people is certainly a different proposition from the official EU aspirants in his in-tray.
Mr Rehn, the EU enlargement commissioner, has spent much of this past week dealing with Bulgaria's and Romania's troubled plans to join the 25-nation bloc on January 1 next year. He has also had to respond to recent events in Turkey: the murder of a senior judge by an Islamist lawyer this week highlighted the enormous challenges for Ankara's bid to become an EU member. If that were not enough, Croatia, the other official candidate for EU membership, has yet to show that it can learn the lessons of Bulgaria and Romania by reforming its economy, cracking down on corruption and breaking up its old-fashioned steel mills and shipyards.
As a Finnish politician who cut his teeth on pan-Nordic issues, Mr Rehn is interested in bringing in Iceland and Norway - the two states in the region still outside the EU.
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