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.

  • AllNewTypeFace@leminal.spaceEnglish
    4·
    1 day 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·
      16 hours 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.