Google is a wonderful thing. The stats below are from Wikipedia. It isn’t the Library of Congress, but does match what I read in the WSJ over the years.
While it uses the krona, Iceland was the first European economy to face a financial crisis in what would become the Crisis of 2008. 75% of its trade is with the EU. It became a member of the European Economic Area in 1994. It is a member of NATO.
Iceland had to obtain emergency funding from the International Monetary Fund and a range of European countries in November 2008.
That is a rescue.
You should have kept reading. He doesn’t say Iceland is a part of the EU. I think he says it was the first rescue....or at least that is how I read it.
I liked the humor on the Germans being German. I married one and it is too true. Like Napoleon? or DeGaulle or some other dead Frenchman said, “The Germans are either at your feet or at your throat.”
He doesn’t say it was part of the EU, however the way in which he put the bit about it being almost rescued by the EU