joining the European Union, though the country is a member of the Schengen border-free travel zone and the European Free Trade Association (EFTA). Attitudes towards the EU slowly softened, and in July 2009 the country formally applied for EU accession. The government hopes that the path to EU membership will be completed by 2012, but there are a number of obstacles that could disrupt this timetable. Chief among them is a debt dispute with Britain and the Netherlands arising from the 2008 collapse of the Icelandic banking sector, which hit British and Dutch investors hard. However, efforts to resolve this appeared to be making some headway by the end of 2010. The debt issue has in its turn led many Icelanders to question whether EU membership is such a good idea after all, and an opinion poll conducted shortly before formal accession talks began in July 2010 showed that a majority was in favour of withdrawing the country's application. Other areas that have the capacity to derail the negotiations are Iceland's whale hunting industry and its insistence on maintaining its fishing limits - an issue that precipitated the "Cod Wars" of the 1950s and 1970s. Iceland's announcement that it was unilaterally increasing its mackeral fishing quota for 2011 by nearly 17,000 tonnes looked set to increase tensions with the EU and Norway. Leaders Social Democrat Johanna Sigurdardottir took over as head of a centre-left coalition in January 2009, after protests about Iceland's economic collapse brought down the government of Geir