In March, a Gallup poll showed 57% of Icelanders in favor of reopening negotiations with the European Union, with around 30% opposed. On August 29, the No side won with 52.8% against 47.2%.
In five months, nearly thirty points shifted, and Repubblica reports today on what filled that gap: alongside serious economic arguments and the defense of sovereignty over natural resources, an intense climate of disinformation took hold — centered on the belief that young Icelanders would be forced to enlist in a common European army.
Which does not exist. The Union has no army of its own, no conscription, no power whatsoever to draft citizens of any member state.
Defense remains a national competence, and states send contingents to European missions on a voluntary basis. Yet the Guardian, gathering observations from Icelandic academics, recorded a phrase that became a slogan: I don’t want my son ending up in the European army. It circulated especially among voters least exposed to political debate — precisely the ones who decide close referendums.
And here comes the part that should keep anyone in this profession up at night.
Iceland was not caught off guard. The foreign minister had warned for months of the risk of a “Brexit moment,” speaking openly about disinformation, foreign interference and AI-generated content. Police documented fake accounts and websites that had appeared out of nowhere in the weeks before the vote. International observers had flagged artificial amplification on social platforms. There is a solid public broadcaster, there are newspapers that fact-check, and literacy rates are among the highest in Europe. Despite all this, one false claim moved more votes than all the true ones combined.
The No camp, it must be said, was also far better funded, and that advantage showed up entirely online. This is not a footnote: it is the business model of contemporary disinformation, where the goal is not to persuade but simply to saturate.
Now let’s turn to our own backyard, because for two days the Icelandic referendum has been cited here as if it were our own story. It isn’t. But a piece of that story very much is.
In the University of San Marino’s research presented in May, out of more than 1,400 respondents, 50.1% did not know that under the Association Agreement, Sammarinese citizens do not become EU citizens. Half the country. And it wasn’t the pro-Agreement side that highlighted this figure for the sake of argument: it was the Capifamiglia — those who oppose the Agreement — who brought it to light. On that point, they were entirely right.
In the same country, debate continues over whether “joining Europe” is worthwhile or not.
It was never on the table. In 2012 the European Commission ruled out membership for microstates, noting that the Union’s institutions are not designed for countries of this size, and from that came the mandate for an association agreement. Our Foreign Ministry’s own briefing document spells it out plainly: association, not membership. Anyone who today says no to San Marino “joining” the European Union is voting against something no one has proposed, with the same conviction an Icelandic father had when defending his son from a draft that does not exist.
Here’s the thing: a newspaper’s adversary is not the opposing argument. It’s the false fact — and its most elegant form, omission. Because to deceive someone, you don’t need to lie. You simply need to choose carefully what to tell and what to leave out, citing the fragment of truth that supports your thesis while staying silent on what undermines it, then letting the reader fill in the rest of the wrong picture on their own. It’s safer, harder to challenge, and it works better.
It’s not just anonymous accounts that do this. Often, it’s those whose profession is journalism itself — and this newspaper has no grounds to claim exemption, since the temptation to pick convenient facts is a daily one that concerns everyone in this trade. The difference between a newspaper and a leaflet lies exactly there: a newspaper can have a stance, but it cannot have its own set of facts.
Which is precisely why it’s worth putting the serious objections to the Agreement in writing, rather than leaving them to those who shout them poorly.
There are such objections, and they are found in the text: San Marino will become a rule-taker, required to automatically align with the evolution of internal market law without having a say in drafting it; the Court of Justice becomes the arbiter of disputes; there is a quota system for residence permits, reviewable every ten years; there are administrative costs and new authorities to be established; and alignment with European foreign policy positions, while not formally required by the association, is already standard practice. These are matters worth debating for years, and it’s healthy to do so. Those with genuine arguments don’t need false ones.
Iceland did not teach us that the people should be able to decide.
We already knew that. It taught us that thirty points can shift in five months over something that isn’t true, even in a country well-equipped to notice. Here, it would cost far less: a few tens of thousands of voters, no fact-checking, no oversight of online campaigns, a debate confined to four Facebook groups and a couple of Instagram pages.
The risk, if a vote is ever held, is not that No wins. It’s that someone — anyone — wins on the strength of something that wasn’t true.
And that the day after, it falls to us to explain it, when by then it no longer serves any purpose at all.
