Olafur Ragnar Grimsson, the President of Iceland, intends to take his time to carefully go over the details of the Icesave Bill which parliament approved yesterday.
Grimsson said he cannot yet say how long his decision will take; but did say he intends to meet with key players in the near future, including members of the InDefence group.
The InDefence group has set up an online petition asking the President to veto the law and send it to a national referendum. 46,000 people have signed so far.
Only one Icelandic president has ever vetoed a law, which makes the Icesave Bill appear likely to pass into law. However, the petition will have a strong influence on the President’s decision and Olafur Ragnar Grimsson is the very same president who famously used his veto right once before.
Polls indicate that the Bill would be rejected in the event of a national referendum.
The best plan is a DEBT MORATORIUM! Under NO circumstances should a government or nation allow the destruction of civilization to satisfy fraudulent paper! Don’t even begin to legitimize this fraud against Iceland by negotiating settlement of this debt.
Iceland was set up for this by the creation of toxic derivatives by U.K. and Netherlands banks and sold to Icesave for the explicit purpose of hostile takeover. Let the Queens eat cake! Better yet, let them eat derivatives!
Bjarni did write in reply to Suzanne :
>In any case, you have my deepest sympathy for your suffering, and I hope in the end you will be able to recover most of your savings.
And I also would like to give my condolences — you and Landsbanki Guernsey short and longer term depositer were most unfairily of all hit in my opinion in this whole post October 8th 2008 horror.
The time line of this that was taken advantage of by UK Treasury in case of KSF IOM is this :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/11/23/kaupthing-employee-accused-of-stealing-millions/#comment-102924
( It is good that at least you now are getting back some of the money that was taken and is in the bank accounts in UK of the taken by Darling and Brown Kauthpgin Singer and Friedlander. )
To Suzanne:
A lot more people, than just Kaupthing shareholders lost significant part (or all) of their savings in Iceland. But I do not think it serves any purpose trying to debate which people lost “most”. Every person that lost money in the crash, suffers deeply as a consequence, and most of them are completely innocent victims.
Basically, the depositors of KIoM fell through the cracks between the three countries, and got screwed. The bulk of its money was transferred to KSFUK before the crash and got stuck there, when the British government closed the bank down on October 8th. This resulted in the immediate collapse of Kaupthing worldwide, including the parent bank in Iceland. The so called “parent” guarantee by Kaupthing in Iceland is therefore mostly useless, as the parent bank itself is bankrupt.
I do not have any detailed knowledge of exactly how strong the claim is from KIoM to the bankruptcy proceedings of KSF and Kaupthing, but I would assume its being treated as an unsecured claim according to the bankruptcy laws of each respective country.
In any case, you have my deepest sympathy for your suffering, and I hope in the end you will be able to recover most of your savings.
BBC now reporting this on the front page.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/8438178.stm
I wonder how big a petition (even without fraud) the UK could raise when its reported that Icelandic people expect the UK taxpayer to bail out the Icelandic banks and banking system.
I don’t blame Icelanders for not wanting to pay for failed privately owned banks costing the average Icelander 12000 Euro, but depositors in the Kaupthing Isle of Man branch have lost their life savings we had “0” returned to us for 14months now we finally have 40% just before Christmas, and we were the only solvent arm of Kaupthing who have ended up so much worse than any Icelander except for perhaps a Kaupthing shareholder, but we were not shareholders or investors but ordinary depositors. I have lost 30 years worth of life savings and my mother’s inheritance. It is sick as under parental guarantee of Kaupthing Iceland that we as the most solvent bank are the biggest losers robbed 100%. There is havoc illness and suicide amongst our depositors. We have to pay extra tax too for the failed banks connected to the Icelandic banks.
You may be aggrieved at the injustice of bailing out a bank (I agree with you…) but think what it like for us (UK citizens who equally hate Gordon Brown and Chancellor Darling) who end up with nothing, totally fully robbed victims – any of us are too old or homeless now to wait for 10 years (projected forecast) to only get a percentage of our money back. Those greedy bastard bank directors have ruined thousands of lives (it is not justice for them to only get 8 months in jail – where is the pay back?) and there are 10,000 of us – victims from Kaupthing Isle of Man! Please spare a thought for our suffering too we haven’t just lost 12000 Euros but everything for over a year ( last Christmas a time of year I love was emotional hell), and we are still now made to suffer for 10 years. Where is the justice from the New Kaupthing, Iceland AND Britain?
Hi from England,
Why should Icelandic, or any other, taxpayer bail out investors who saw the opportunity to make a nice profit but chose to ignore the many warnings, months before the collapse. The investors made commercial decisions but failed to read the signs. Don’t pay up.
@Bjarni and Easy,
Absolutely amazing indeed. I agree that the deal should be in such a form that it does not force Iceland into bankruptcy and therefore I have full understanding for these amendments…but now it really seems that Althing and the goberment are selling out Iceland.
@Fried Jan,
I dislike Wouter Bos just as much as you do. This guy is now priding himself that he basically sold a loan to Iceland with a rate of 5,5 %.
Repayment of the debt should be done, but in a fair manner
@Peter,
I suppose that in a referendum a majority of icelanders would vote against the deal. However in that case the consequences for Iceland would be bad too. It is obvious that behind the curtains there is a lot of pressure on the icelandic goberment.
To Jimbo (original Jim):
>>>>Is there any constitutional direction saying which of those two he should focus on: ie what’s best for the country or what the people want?
Not really, in fact the text is relatively short:
“26. gr. Ef Alþingi hefur samþykkt lagafrumvarp, skal það lagt fyrir forseta lýðveldisins til staðfestingar eigi síðar en tveim vikum eftir að það var samþykkt, og veitir staðfestingin því lagagildi. Nú synjar forseti lagafrumvarpi staðfestingar, og fær það þó engu að síður lagagildi, en leggja skal það þá svo fljótt sem kostur er undir atkvæði allra kosningarbærra manna í landinu til samþykktar eða synjunar með leynilegri atkvæðagreiðslu. Lögin falla úr gildi, ef samþykkis er synjað, en ella halda þau gildi sínu.”
http://www.stjornarskra.is/Itarefni/
Basically it says that laws passed by Althingi have to be submitted to the President within 2 weeks for his signature to be ratified. If he declines to sign, the laws still become valid, but they will have to be voted on in a national referendum as soon as possible. If they are voted down in the referendum, the laws are voided.
There is nothing mentioned in the constitution as to what the President should take into account when making the decision. When the President refused to sign the media laws few years ago, he specifically said it was to avoid a “rift” between the parliament and the population.
Of the 60500 people that had signed the petition by this morning, 56089 were included on the list given to the President. This represents 23.3% of all people in Iceland that have the right to vote.
Only the names of people that were 18 years or older and could be matched along with the national id (kennitala) in the national registry (þjóðskrá) were included.
http://www.mbl.is/mm/frettir/innlent/2010/01/02/4_stjornarthingmenn_skrifudu_undir/
To Fried-Jan Unger:
Thank you!
Spot on Ryan.
I hope the people of Iceland get to vote the bill. I am not sure if that will change anything, but let the people speak.
On Dec 31, 2009, Easy said:
“By now arrownd 51,000 people have sign the petition, that is about 34% of the ecomomiclyy active population, which is what counts, and if we thinh abot that this is an online vote and that 90% of the nation has internet not 100% so it jumps up to about 40% of the nation have sign it, then about 70% of the nation actually know of Indefence”
Are only economically active people allowed to sign the petition? Apparently not; according to this blogger http://silfuregils.eyjan.is/2010/01/02/furdulegur-voxtur-i-undirskriftasofnunalthjodlegur-sattasemjari/ a large percentage of the signers are not even old enough to be eligible to vote.
The figures are obviously subject to simple fraud and can be rejected. I’d prefer to see the results of a real referendum before jumping to a conclusion.
To Niels:
>>>>-Althing accepts the repayment WITHOUT these amendments? That would be amazing. I thought the vote was about the deal WITH amendments.
Yes, this was an amazing development. Althingi actually passed the laws last August where the amendments were fully integrated into the Icesave guarantee. But after the UK/Netherlands raised their objections, the Icelandic government forced changes to the amendments, which watered them down to almost nothing.
This is what the argument has been all about for the past few months and why the opposition to the new agreement is so fierce.
@Niels.
Nop, the he TOTALLY removed the amandments from the contract.
Bjarni’s comment was useful.
I think it’ll come down to whether the president does what he thinks is best for Iceland (ie sign the bill) or what he thinks the people want (ie a referendum). Is there any constitutional direction saying which of those two he should focus on: ie what’s best for the country or what the people want?
SIR EURO … acting like a child earns you the respect of a child that speaks out of immature emotion and hateful opinions that obviously don’t arise from facts but a sense of personal dog kicking vengeance you apparently need to give in to. Luckily, this is electronic and no paper had to be wasted on your blathering.
As a Dutch national it shames me to see how Dutch individual greed and money hunger combined with a total ignorance of international structures and finance, has been bundled by some of Hollands most perverse politicians in order to use it as a tool for blackmailing Iceland into paying for Dutch peoples lack of understanding and non existent self-reliance.
I sincerely hope that Iceland’s president does not sign the agreement and that
my comment as a global citizen is published and passed on to as many as possible.
Giving in to blackmail by other nations politicians has been done before with disastrous consequences. Iceland should not cave-in to this kind of state sanctioned terrorism.
With kindest regards,
Fried-Jan Unger
P/a Artilleriepark 30
6814JZ
Arnhem
The Netherlands
@Easy (and happy new year to you),
I am sorry but I do not get it any more. Let’s recapitulate:
-Iceland received loans from the UK and NL in order to repay the first 20.000 euro to Icesave depositors
-negotiations about repayment take place and the icelandic negotiators accept harsh terms
-Althing demands amendments to this deal (this is something which I can understand very well from the icelandic point of view)
-Althing accepts the repayment WITHOUT these amendments?
That would be amazing. I thought the vote was about the deal WITH amendments.
Ok, By now it´s 57,000 people that have signed the petition, I wonder what excuse will the president give for signing Icesave, specially since last time he signed it, he made it very clear that he signed because of the amandments they put to the contract, but now, with amandments REMOVED and 57,000 people and counting, asking him not to sign,(Im pretty sure he has allready done it)what stupid excuse will he give to sign? and what is more importan, what is everybody going to do? I guess just accept it just like everything else and always.
The matter of icesave needed to be solved long time ago. Icelandic economy has deteriorated a lot since the beginning of this crisis. And now they have taken too long time with this. They have stolen lots of money from Iceland and other nations and now icelanders have to pay for it all. This is the robbery of the 21st century. A nation assaulted by its own men, a BETRAYED NATION. But still, I think it is ICELANDERS TO BLAME. Because you elected them and because YOU DON’T HAVE THE NUTS TO DO WHAT NEEDS TO BE DONE, YOU ARE LIKE LAMBS AND THEY DO WITH YOU WHATEVER THEY WANT. So carry on with the debt, and never ever complain. Look down while you walk to walk to get paid a misery of salary that is way below the media salary in EU, pay your very high taxes, dream about traveling abroad, etc…
Because you deserve it. You are not a nation of people who fights for their rights. Icelanders, you are SLEEPING.I feel so sorry for icelanders, really sorry, I HAVE NEVER SEEN PEOPLE WITH SUCH A LACK OF DIGNITY!! they just let do anything on themselves!
“Very wise decision by President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to take his time and think this matter carefully over.”
LOL!! PLEASE!!
Blip!! Blip!!
Bjarni
An objective non-partisan comment!
It is good for those outside Iceland, to be appraised of the sensitivities and minutiae of your internal situation.
By now arrownd 51,000 people have sign the petition, that is about 34% of the ecomomiclyy active population, which is what counts, and if we thinh abot that this is an online vote and that 90% of the nation has internet not 100% so it jumps up to about 40% of the nation have sign it, then about 70% of the nation actually know of Indefence, that makes this 51,000 people about 70% of the nation has acctually sign this petition, not 10% like Fisy says.
Anyways I can almost garantee that he has acctually sign this petition, even yesterday:)this is only “entretainment for the nation” nothing but a show that Staingrimur Johanna and the “president” decided to put up today aven yesterday, so don’t keep your hopes up, like I said mor than a year ago, Iceland WILL pay that money, Iceland WILL accept Icesave, and everything they want, iceland is no longer controlled by greans or reads, or blues, Iceland is controlled today 100& buy the forign investore and Europe through the IMF. as simple and reall as that.
Bjarni did write :
>It is important to remember, that .. the current government is the first left-wing government in 20 years.
And also it is the first completely Left-wing one in Iceland’s history. It is first time that actual true left wing parties are in coalition together.
They have never in Icelandic history been given this trust before by electors. And I think the last time based on they performance to date.
People who were alive then are now remembering how it was before 1991 and Davið’s changed Independence party, because this useless Red-Green government is doing same things
( income tax hike on companys and individuals putting back preggresive income taxes over 50% etc against all knowledge of Laffer-Keynes-Khaldun curve etc etc etc)
and worse than they did before when constrained in power by coalition with other more right wing parties as they have always been before.
wonder if the responsibility of the bank that would assist the country in poverty are not called to the respnsable cm large fortunes and now working people is going to foot the bill?
The president will sign this because of his political affiliations.He is pretending to take his time so he can have a jolly knees up tonight(at the tax payers expense!)
Icelanders should protest now because this bill and the new tax laws will ruin this country for,at least,two decades.
Unfortunately all the political parties are at fault so there is little hope of anything positive being done for the general public.The current government is incompetent(even their biased law advisers stated that the interest rates on Icesave were far too high) while the IP are primarily at fault for the laws which allowed this to happen.
It is ridiculous that “normal” Icelanders are expected to pay back the debts of private companies.No “normal” Icelander received any dividends from the banks because of the Icesave accounts so they shouldn’t be expected to pay the debts.
If protesting doesn’t work then I,along with many others,will leave our homeland and look to prosper elsewhere.
Two of the major EU nations have treated Iceland very harshly on this matter while the rest have refused to help.Why would this government want to be part of that?
A sad day in Icelandic history.
Very wise decision by President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to take his time and think this matter carefully over.
The choice of whether to accept the IceSave agreement will be incredibly difficult for the President:
If he accepts the agreement without allowing it to go to a national referendum, this will be looked at as betrayal by a large part of the population, that demands to have their own say in the matter. This would go completely against the statement he made, when he accepted the earlier IceSave agreement with the amendments and make a mockery of his first veto. His presidency would therefore be marked with a stain that will probably never go away.
If he vetoes the IceSave agreement and sends it to referendum, this will likely fell the current government. It is important to remember, that Olafur Ragnar is one of the old guard of the political left in Iceland, and the current government is the first left-wing government in 20 years. New election would probably mean that the Independence party, the old arch-enemy of the left, would get back into government. This would therefore would be looked as a betrayal by his own people on the left.
“His place in history will be guaranteed.”
I think is all ready there he does nothing than talk a lot and help his ” elite” friends.
Just notice the chain of events and the dates picked to address them.
Get ready to get |”|\’/\CK by the IMF or wishfully thinking people will revolt to this nonsense as Latvia and Greece are doing.
It is a shame how majority of the nation has been program to such a level of …. ( I dont even know how to call it )
Everything is working as planed by the Elite, the Natural resources and Human resources are now in their pockets by CONSENT. O_O
[…] Read the original post: Icesave goes to Iceland president for final decision | IceNews … […]
In far better article on IceSave bill being passed over other place was this quote :
” Finance Minister and leader of the Left Green Party, Steingrímur J. Sigfússon said that.. said it was his firm belief that the economy would start improving next year. “If I did not believe this, I would not stand here,” said Sigfússon. ”
He is just out of his mind.
I find very little useful over at Alda’s blog ( other than a couple of the interviews she did make ) but this speaks very loudly about how we are time travelling back to the Iceland of circu 1978-1980 and it is scary :
http://icelandweatherreport.com/2009/12/new-iceland-ur-doin-it-wrong.html
And here details of what is already wrong about taxing of small companys and of course current changes is going to make it far more worse and more like doing business in Soviet era Russia ( and I am not kidding ) as Alda does hint at in her ( in her jolly ” we’re off to the government glue factory to be liquidated but its okay because it is being done by Left Wingers+ ” ) :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/11/08/iceland-plans-to-subsidise-innovation/#comment-100911
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/11/11/iceland’s-“crazy”-new-tax-plans/#comment-101158
Earth to Alda — it doesn’t matter what the political stripe of the liquidators is — it is the fact that this changes will not only make the burecrats in tax office even more petty and mean and power mad and unaccountable and every one does suffer from this.
The entreprenuriial spirit of Icelandic people is all that would save Iceland tax base. And now that is being crushed.
>Only one Icelandic president has ever vetoed a law, which makes the Icesave Bill appear likely to pass into law.
That president of course being.. Ólafur Ragnar.. who vetoed media law 2 June 2004 base on article 26th of Icelandic constitution.
His decison was based on a petition of only 10.000 people or so ( aound 3% of our population so not a small number but far less than the over 10% of population that have signed current petition ).
So in IceSave case we are talking about far more evidence that current government is floating in the clouds far away from the will of people on this issue.
And if he does ignore the now as I look 48.000 people that have signed indefense.is ( and also did that scientific voting using they bank account logins ) he will go down in history as the worst president.
No one will be able to do worst than him if he does sign.
His place in history will be guaranteed.
keep fighting for fairness and justice re bankers shenanigens Iceland . You won a justly fought Cod War so dont roll over as us stupid Brits do. Good luck for your future .