of the Copenhagen criteria: it must be a politically stable democracy that respects human rights. Then negotiations will take place which will consider the country's fulfilment of economic criteria, the country's degree of adoption of EU legislation, and whether there shall be any exceptions. EU Enlargement Commissioner Olli Rehn has claimed that negotiations on an accession treaty would take less than a year, because Iceland has already adopted two-thirds of EU legislation in relation to the EEA. He has on other occasions claimed that the negotiations could take up to four years. On 30 January 2009, Rehn commented that Iceland could enter the European Union promptly in 2011, at the same time as Croatia, saying that Iceland is an old democracy but also that it should not get special treatment. Fishing quotas and Icelandic whaling may be the toughest issues in any such negotiations. On 16 July 2009, the Althing voted in favour of accession talks with the EU (with 33 votes in favour, 28 against, and 2 abstentions). The head of the parliamentary committee on EU affairs, Árni Þór Sigurðsson, has stated that Iceland will not be ready to join the EU any earlier than 2013. However the government stated that it planned to complete negotiations by the end of 2010. On 17 July 2009, the application for Icelandic membership of the EU was handed to the government of Sweden, which then held the presidency of the Council of the European Union, by the ambassador of Iceland in Stockholm. The application was again handed over by the Icelandic foreign minister to the Swedish one in a ceremony in Stockholm on 23 July 2009. The letter of application was dated 16 July 2009. The application was acknowledged by the Council of the European Union on 27 July 2009. Accession negotiations Sweden, then holder of the EU presidency, announced that it would prioritise Iceland's EU accession process. On 24 July, the Lithuanian Parliament unanimously approved and gave full support for Iceland's membership application to join the European Union. Later, on 27 July, Malta also announced that it supports Iceland's EU bid. In September 2009, the Spanish foreign minister visited Iceland to discuss the progress of the Icelandic application; Spain chaired the EU from January–June 2010. On 8 September, the EU commission sent a list of 2,500 questions to Iceland about its fulfilment of political and economic criteria and adoption of EU