Iceland says it will put EU membership to referendum by 2027
www.euronews.com
Iceland has traditionally been ambivalent about joining the bloc but issues like the 2008 financial crisis, Brexit and a range of domestic issues has meant the country is slowly warming to the idea of membership. #EuropeNews

The incoming administration of Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, which takes over on Sunday, also said it will set up a panel of experts to look into the advantages and disadvantages of retaining the Icelandic crown over adopting the Euro.

  • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
    4·
    2 days ago

    Yeah, I saw the í but well.

    It’s like the old swedish minister of justice, Gun Hellsvik (hellsweek).

    Do they always switch the last name in Iceland? Like many places has “son of” like Svenson in Sweden, but it became a family name so it doesn’t change any more.

    • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
      4·
      2 days ago

      Sweden only made the change gradually about a century ago, with it happening first in urban areas. The merchant Clas Ohlson, after whom the dry goods chain is named, was the son of Olle something-other-than-Ohlson, and the first in his line to make their surname a family name.

      Surnames that describe the individual (“son of Olaf”, “the blacksmith”, “from up the river”) work fine in small-scale societies, but are a problem for bureaucracies and other systems. IIRC, a lot of the pressure for standardised family names in Europe was to make things like taxation and conscription more manageable.

      • Valmond@lemmy.worldEnglish
        1·
        1 day ago

        I also heard that for a long time people didn’t have family names at all, but it became all the rage in like 1700 century or something.