A nearly-ruined economic country, Iceland said it hopes to start talks this year to eventually become a member of the European Union, although it’s at the bottom of a waiting list that includes other countries such as Croatia, Serbia, FYROM, Albania and perhaps even Turkey, whose talks are expected to last for years. Iceland’s new government is targeting EU membership as a way out of the crisis that led to last year’s 80 percent slump in the currency and drove unemployment to 9.1 percent in April from as low as 0.8 percent in 2007 and had many officials eyeing the Euro as a new currency. “It is still possible to open accession negotiations before the end of this year with Iceland,” EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn told a conference sponsored by Deutsche Bank in Brussels.

Iceland was Europe’s hardest hit country in the worldwide recession and the meltdown took all the country’s banks with it. But Rehn noted that the country already observes two-thirds of EU laws and no one questions its democratic credentials. But Rehn said Iceland still stands behind Croatia, despite that country’s simmering feud with Slovenia over sea access that has barred Croatia’s progress. “It’s quite clear that Croatia will be the 28th member state,” Rehn said. Even in the “theoretical possibility” of Iceland moving ahead so the two join on the same day, Croatia would still be ahead because countries are admitted in alphabetical order, he said. Iceland hopes EU membership will take it out of the economic quagmire in which the losses to its banks far exceeded the country’s GDP. The country has had to take USD 5.1 billion in International Monetary Fund loans and has a new premier Johanna Sigurdardottir.