Iceland 's new prime minister wants her country to join the European Union and adopt the euro as its official currency to help lift the Nordic nation from financial ruin , a spokesman said Tuesday . Prime Minister Johanna Sigurdardottir took office earlier this week . The announcement by Johanna Sigurdardottir , 66 , came just two days after she was sworn in as prime minister and a week after the Cabinet resigned in the fallout from Iceland 's financial collapse . She is Iceland 's first female prime minister and the world 's first openly gay leader . Iceland has been in political turmoil since October , when its currency , stock market and leading banks crashed amid the global financial crisis . The island nation 's Nordic neighbors sent billions of dollars to prop up the economy , as did the International Monetary Fund in its first intervention to support a Western European democracy in decades . Sigurdardottir touted EU membership at a joint news conference Tuesday with Finance Minister Steingrimur Sigfusson , whose Left-Green Movement teamed up with the prime minister 's Social Democratic Alliance to form the new two-party minority government . The Alliance party was until recently the only movement in Iceland 's five-party parliament to push EU membership as a viable way to rescue Iceland 's suffering economy . However , Sigfusson and his party are n't convinced that the country should join the EU 's 27 other members . Instead , he said he is considering a monetary union with Norway , meaning Iceland would adopt the Norwegian krone as its currency . Iceland 's newly instated minority government will only be in power for 80 days and elections are scheduled for April 25 . Until then , no decisions about the country possibly joining the European Union will be made -- though the question could be important during the elections , Sigurdardottir 's spokesman , Kristjan Kristjansson , said . CNN 's Per Nyberg contributed to this report .
No decision on joining EU will be made before April elections . Prime minister wants nation to adopt euro as official currency . Iceland 's stock market , banks crashed last autumn during financial crisis .