From left: Hrynko, Kolm, the Foreign Minister, von Habsburg, and Winkelmann.
On 12 May 2023, Iceland’s Foreign Minister, Her Excellency Thordis Kolbrun Reykfjord Gylfadottir, gave a lunch for four female leaders from abroad who were in Iceland to speak at an international conference held the same day by the University of Iceland on the occasion of the retirement of Hannes H. Gissurarson, Professor of Politics, who turned seventy in February. They were Yana Hrynko, Curator of the Holodomor Museum in Kyiv, Dr. Barbara Kolm, Director of the Hayek Institute in Vienna, Her Excellency Gabriela von Habsburg, former Ambassador of Georgia to Germany, and Dr. Neela Winkelmann, former Director of the Platform of European Memory and Conscience. Also present at the meeting was Martin Eyjolfsson, Permanent Secretary at the Foreign Ministry. Foreign Minister Gylfadottir discussed with her guests the forthcoming summit of European leaders in Reykjavik on 16 May and the present war between Russia and Ukraine in which all five Nordic countries firmly support Ukraine. Iceland was in 1949 a founding member state of NATO, the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation, and has a Defence Treaty with the United States. She strongly supports the membership of Finland and Sweden in NATO. Iceland is also a member state of EEA, the European Economic Area, with Norway and Liechtenstein, and, to all practical purposes, with Switzerland, and then with all the EU member states. She is also a member state of the Nordic Council, an important forum for Nordic cooperation and voluntary integration.
