33 MPs voted yes to the Icesave Bill, 30 said no. The voting lasted over three hours and was at times fierce and personal. It is now up to the Icelandic president to sign these bills, and with that make them law. The president, Mr. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson is under pressure from over 35,000 Icelandic voters who have signed a petition asking him not to sign the controversial laws.
After results became clear, the Finance Minister and leader of the Left-Green party Steingrimur J. Sigfusson said that history would judge the decision to be the right one.
To Niels:
>>>>On the other hand Lux even raised the state guarantee for bankrupt banks to 100.000 euro per account.
If we are having this much trouble guaranteeing 20.000 Euros, I am not sure how much it would have helped to increase it to 100.000 per account. :-)
Bjarni, you said:
“Malta and Luxembourg are both small countries like Iceland, but neither of them had the same over-sized, highly leveraged private banks, operating outside their country. Also, both countries are part of the Euro zone (the Iceland crash was in many ways, just as much crash of the Icelandic krona as it was a banking crash).”
You are right about this. Moreover the icelandic bank was unable to act as a lender of last resort.
On the other hand Lux even raised the state guarantee for bankrupt banks to 100.000 euro per account.
http://www.lloyds.com/CmsPhoenix/DowJonesArticle.aspx?id=408751
To Niels:
>>>>Why did not other small nations like Malta, Lux or even the Faeroer suffer a similar crash as Iceland did?
Actually, Faroe Islands suffered a major economic collapse in the early 1990’s, and only in recent years been able to pull themselves out of it. Faroe Islands are also supported financially by Denmark, a much larger country.
Malta and Luxembourg are both small countries like Iceland, but neither of them had the same over-sized, highly leveraged private banks, operating outside their country. Also, both countries are part of the Euro zone (the Iceland crash was in many ways, just as much crash of the Icelandic krona as it was a banking crash).
Knowless said:
“There was some comment before about Icelander’s lack of grasp of basic mathematics, somehow I think they are only ones who know that taking responsibility for one bankruptcy debt plus another bankruptcy debt, equals a deep dark void when you have no income.
”
The UK and NL know about this perfectly well but they do not care.
As for ‘lack of basic mathemetical (and economical) knowledge I would like to ask: why did not other small nations like Malta, Lux or even the Faeroer suffer a similar crash as Iceland did?
Banks from these countries never felt the urge ‘to conquer the world’ nor did citizens from these countries take loans in foreign currency in order to finance a luxurious lifestyle.
To Terry:
>>>>If Mathiesen had responded to Darlings initial question with an unequivocal assurance (as per Ireland), that Iceland intended to guarantee the deposits, but needed assistance….. But asking for help seems to be a problem for Icelanders.
Actually, Iceland had been asking for assistance repeatedly for the last few months, as Arni Mathiesen mentions few sentences later:
” but the point is also, Chancellor, that we have for months been trying to talk to everybody around us and trying to tell them that we were in trouble and ask them for support and we have actually gotten very little support.”
http://icelandreview.com/icelandreview/daily_news/?cat_id=16539&ew_0_a_id=314205
If you have followed the debate in Iceland for the past months, you would quickly realize that Arni Mathiesen was not legally allowed by the constitution to give any unequivocal assurance, regarding the Icesave guarantee. In fact, only laws passed by the parliament can issue such a guarantee, and any promise by Arni would therefore have been meaningless.
To Terry:
>>>>I think Fisy is being quite shrewd in his defence of UK Judiciary. They have a habit of demonstrating that they are neither political pawns, or friends of public opinion. So perhaps ‘To Court!’ – as Fisy keeps reminding, would be an option.
I completely agree, as sending matters to an independent court is the “only” civilized way to resolve disputes, if negotiations do not succeed.
The only “case” I am aware of having been concluded so far, is the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) preliminary opinion issued last month:
http://www.forsaetisraduneyti.is/media/frettir/Bradabirgdanidurstada_ESA.pdf
The opinion is rather long (13 pages), but it gives very detailed legal reasoning that is very interesting to read. It examined mainly two questions in regards to the EEA treaty:
1. Whether the emergency laws where justified in changing the priority of the depositors over other creditors.
2. Whether the transfer of assets and liabilities from the old bank to the new banks was justified.
In both cases, with its legal reasoning, the ESA determines that these actions by the Icelandic authorities where indeed justified, in accordance with the EEA treaty.
This result (as long as it is not changed by the time final ruling is issued), removes one of the biggest threats to Iceland/UK/Netherlands interests regarding the emergency laws. If the emergency laws had been deemed to be illegal, ALL depositors would have been treated as unsecured creditors, potentially resulting in much lower recovery from the bankruptcy proceedings of the “old” banks.
It should be noted, that this preliminary opinion by ESA does NOT, as is explained in the introduction, deal with the question of State aid, nor the question of difference in treatment between domestic deposits and deposits held in branches in other EEA States.
Both of these are unresolved legal questions are of major importance to everyone involved, and it will be interesting to see how the ESA treats them when it issues its final opinions on them.
Terry said:
Bjarni
>As I have mentioned before, if UK/Netherlands government continue demanding more than is possible, they might very well end up with less, even nothing.
“Heard this many times, and it becoming a tiresome veiled threat.
If this were to materialise, I would expect that the UK and Netherlands ensure that Iceland has ‘nothing’ for much longer than those it owes.
That is not ‘bullying’ Bjarni – it is a justifiable response to a debtor declining to pay.”
————————————————–
You do understand that even without the Icesave debt, the economy is bankrupt.
There has been an agreement in principle to pay the Icesave debt (once it was determined) since near enough from the beginning of the crash.
You can accept that a bankrupt debtor is entitled to negotiate the terms of contract of the debt ?
Can you also accept that citizens already faced with a doubling of their mortgage, personal loan debt and consumer prices, in a bankrupt economy may just not be ecstatic about and also maybe are unable to make good the Icesave debt?
There was some comment before about Icelander’s lack of grasp of basic mathematics, somehow I think they are only ones who know that taking responsibility for one bankruptcy debt plus another bankruptcy debt, equals a deep dark void when you have no income.
Hello Bjarni
>The Icelandic people feel they should have a their own say in the matter, whether they should take on an obligation they cannot possibly meet. In the end, they are the ones that will have to pay for this, not the banks or the government.
Bjarni – I wouldn’t disagree that a referendum take place. I would feel more comfortable that in the event of a ‘no’ vote – any UK/Netherlands/ EU retribution would be in consequence to a collective, rather than governmental decision.
I think Fisy is being quite shrewd in his defence of UK Judiciary. They have a habit of demonstrating that they are neither political pawns, or friends of public opinion.
So perhaps ‘To Court!’ – as Fisy keeps reminding, would be an option.
Whilst we know only what is publicised – I can’t help but wonder how different things might have been. Instead of the fateful conversation –
“Darling: Do I understand that you guarantee the deposits of Icelandic depositors?
Mathiesen: Yes, we guarantee the deposits in the banks and branches here in Iceland.
Darling: But not the branches outside Iceland?
Mathiesen: No, not outside of what was already in the letter that we sent. Darling: But is that not in breach of the EEA Treaty?
Mathiesen: No, we don’t think so and think this is actually in line with what other countries have been doing over recent days.”
If Mathiesen had responded to Darlings initial question with an unequivocal assurance (as per Ireland), that Iceland intended to guarantee the deposits, but needed assistance….. But asking for help seems to be a problem for Icelanders.
The situation was further compounded by Oddsson stating that “we [the Icelandic State] do not intend to pay the debts of the banks that have been a little heedless”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Icesave_dispute
Sorry to dredge over old ground Bjarni, but I feel it pertinent, because you raise the Ragnar Hall issue. Again, why have these concerns not been resolved by direct negotiation?
To Terry:
>>>>Heard this many times, and it becoming a tiresome veiled threat.
Again, it is what it is. If UK/Netherlands refuse to listen to the ‘moderates’ and negotiate an agreement that is fair and can be accepted, then the result might end up being that the ‘hardliners’ get into power and the opportunity for a negotiated deal just goes away.
To Terry:
>>>>The issue should not be wholly about the ability to pay – it is also about Iceland’s willingness to seek the hand offered by both your Nordic partners and EU neighbours – to provide a framework of support enabling the meeting of your obligation.
Its not the only point raised, but its an important one. The Icelandic people feel they should have a their own say in the matter, whether they should take on an obligation they cannot possibly meet. In the end, they are the ones that will have to pay for this, not the banks or the government.
The other main sticking point, is not whether there should be an IceSave agreement, as majority of the population actually agrees that there should be a agreement made with UK/Netherlands. But the problem is that the terms of the negotiated agreement are not according to the laws of the country and require Iceland to more than they are required to (the Ragnar Hall issue, interest on the Landsbanki payments, etc.).
If those issues are fully resolved, then the Icesave agreement would probably pass the parliament without any serious problems, like they were this summer.
To Niels:
>>>>It’s like a person who starts driving on the german Autobahn without proper experience, has an accident and then blames the german speed regulations for the accident.
This is actually a perfectly valid point, as it can be argued that before the crash, Iceland as a country simply did not fully understand and appreciate the potential consequences of joining the EEA in regard to the EU finance regulations.
On a side note, I actually remember it well when I drove for the first time on the Autobahn, and experienced the wrath of the other drivers when I did not follow the “rules”. I was quickly taught by the other drivers how to behave (stay on the right, turn down the high-beam when passing, etc.) :-).
“It’s like a person who starts driving on the german Autobahn without proper experience, has an accident and then blames the german speed regulations for the accident.”
And that’s why other countries have speed limits on their motorways…
Bjarni
>It does not really matter whether your heart bleeds or not, or where you sympathies lie. If Iceland cannot grow its exports fast enough, to pay for other countries losses on top of its own, plus interest, then that is what it is.
Your comment links with my prior post relating to ‘nothing’.
Yes, Iceland needs to recover and be viable to repay debts. The EU has extended a hand to enable this – met largely with paranoia and accusation of exploitation within this forum.
From my own perspective – I am unsure about inviting such a quarrelsome little nation into the EU!
The issue should not be wholly about the ability to pay – it is also about Iceland’s willingness to seek the hand offered by both your Nordic partners and EU neighbours – to provide a framework of support enabling the meeting of your obligation.
@Bjarni,
You said:
“The Icelandic banks were following EU regulations that allowed them to grow far outside the size of the home country.”
It’s like a person who starts driving on the german Autobahn without proper experience, has an accident and then blames the german speed regulations for the accident.
To Terry:
>>>>Think of an analogy where the Banks are a dog. The difference between Iceland and ‘the rest of the world,’ is that – the rest of the world scraped up the poop. Iceland walked away leaving others to walk in it!
I am certain Iceland would have bailed out their own banks also, if it had been large enough to handle it.
>>>>Sounds like a Nuremburg defence – ‘they were just following orders’.
The Icelandic banks were not “ordered” by anyone to go outside Iceland. They just took advantage of the existing EU regulations, to grow outside their exceedingly small home market.
>>>>My heart bleeds for the ‘cat that had the cream.’
It does not really matter whether your heart bleeds or not, or where you sympathies lie. If Iceland cannot grow its exports fast enough, to pay for other countries losses on top of its own, plus interest, then that is what it is.
Bjarni
>As I have mentioned before, if UK/Netherlands government continue demanding more than is possible, they might very well end up with less, even nothing.
Heard this many times, and it becoming a tiresome veiled threat.
If this were to materialise, I would expect that the UK and Netherlands ensure that Iceland has ‘nothing’ for much longer than those it owes.
That is not ‘bullying’ Bjarni – it is a justifiable response to a debtor declining to pay.
Bjarni
>Because this was not caused by the poor monitoring by the Icelandic government alone, although it definitely bears its share of the blame. The blame can be assigned far and wide to multiple different parties in Iceland, UK, EU, and the rest of the world.
Think of an analogy where the Banks are a dog. The difference between Iceland and ‘the rest of the world,’ is that – the rest of the world scraped up the poop. Iceland walked away leaving others to walk in it!
>The Icelandic banks were following EU regulations that allowed them to grow far outside the size of the home country.
Sounds like a Nuremburg defence – ‘they were just following orders’.
>Trying to force the victims that were hit by far the hardest, to pay also for the financial losses of citizens in other countries, just makes no sense whatsoever financially, and will simply not be sustainable, as Iceland is technically already bankrupt.
My heart bleeds for the ‘cat that had the cream.’
To Jan,
>>>>- If the government of Iceland borrows money, the government of Iceland will have to pay this back.
Everybody agrees with this, so its really not that complicated. What we are deciding, is if Iceland should take on further loans, and at what terms those loans would be acceptable.
>>>>- If the government of Iceland is stolen by Icelandic criminals, the government of Iceland has to deal with its own criminals.
The current Icelandic government was elected in a perfectly valid election, so its quite a stretch to claim it was somehow stolen by criminals. There may have to be another election soon, if the Icesave agreement is sent to a national referendum by the President.
>>>>If Iceland’s democracy retains the right to disagree on these simple rules and damage the interests of other nations, other democracies retain the right to harm Iceland.
At time of the next election, the Icelandic population will get the opportunity to vote differently if they so prefer. Thats the only democratic way to deal with the current situation.
To Emm:
>>>>Why would UK and Dutch citizens who had money invested become a victim of the poor monitoring of the banks by the Icelandic government?
Because this was not caused by the poor monitoring by the Icelandic government alone, although it definitely bears its share of the blame. The blame can be assigned far and wide to multiple different parties in Iceland, UK, EU, and the rest of the world. The Icelandic banks were following EU regulations that allowed them to grow far outside the size of the home country.
When you have a financial crash of this magnitude (about 50 Billion Euros total), there will be a lot of innocent victims in many different countries. It can be easily shown, that no other country suffered as much damage (per capita) as Iceland did. We will undoubtedly be paying the debt already incurred, and trying to rebuild our financial systems for decades to come, even without IceSave.
Trying to force the victims that were hit by far the hardest, to pay also for the financial losses of citizens in other countries, just makes no sense whatsoever financially, and will simply not be sustainable, as Iceland is technically already bankrupt.
As I have mentioned before, if UK/Netherlands government continue demanding more than is possible, they might very well end up with less, even nothing.
Finally they saw the light. I wonder why this took so long.
It is fascinating that 300000 people living on a basalt rock in the middle of the ocean can make simple things that complicated. Here are the two simple things that the rest of the civilized world agrees on:
– If the government of Iceland borrows money, the government of Iceland will have to pay this back.
– If the government of Iceland is stolen by Icelandic criminals, the government of Iceland has to deal with its own criminals.
If Iceland’s democracy retains the right to disagree on these simple rules and damage the interests of other nations, other democracies retain the right to harm Iceland. In other words: if you suck, others will suck back.
By the way: your fish smells.
“The 3,8 billion Euros has not been burned, it is in the pockets of the criminals. A court could find the responsible criminals. These criminals has to pay the bill, not the icelandic people.”
I totally agree with Wolf….
To Emm:
>>>>Why would UK and Dutch citizens who had money invested become a victim of the poor monitoring of the banks by the Icelandic government?
Because this was not caused by the poor monitoring by the Icelandic government alone, although it definitely bears its share of the blame. The blame can be assigned far and wide to multiple different parties in Iceland, UK, EU, and the rest of the world. The Icelandic banks were following EU regulations that allowed them to grow far outside the size of the home country.
When you have a financial crash of this magnitude (about 50 Billion Euros total), there will be a lot of innocent victims in many different countries. It can be easily shown, that no other country suffered as much damage (per capita) as Iceland did. We will undoubtedly be paying the debt already incurred, and trying to rebuild our financial systems for decades to come, even without IceSave.
Trying to force the victims that were hit by far the hardest, to pay also for the financial losses of citizens in other countries, just makes no sense whatsoever financially, and will simply not be sustainable, as Iceland is technically already bankrupt.
As I have mentioned before, if UK/Netherlands government continue demanding more than is possible, they might very well end up with less, even nothing.
>The 3,8 billion Euros has not been burned, it is in the pockets of the criminals.
Much of it is loaned to companies of UK-based business men. It is not as if this banks was doing any thing other than banking.
We will see what conclusion of the investigration going on of Ólafur Thor and other procecutors who are investigating whole thing ( with guidance of Eva Joly ) but if it is far from that I will be very surprised.
There is plenty foreign ( French and Norwegian ) specialist working on this at recommendation of Eva Joly.
The 3,8 billion Euros has not been burned, it is in the pockets of the criminals. A court could find the responsible criminals. These criminals has to pay the bill, not the icelandic people.
To Fishy:
>>>>Why must it take me nearly * an hour * of searching on and the off to find these posts ?
Alex when is new.icenews.is going to be live ? I can hardly stand this any more.
I agree, it would be really nice to have a better search available on the comments. Since IceNews using WordPress it should be relatively easy to add a more sophisticated Search plug-in, such as:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/search-everything/
or
http://urbangiraffe.com/plugins/search-unleashed/
It is quite common for the comments section to get a life on its own, independent of the original news item. Therefore, having the ability to quickly and easily locate a specific comment, made in a previous thread, would be very useful.
Another thing that would be useful to have, is a paginated list of news item threads that could be sorted by name, date, number of comments, etc.
Adding a good tag cloud plug-in would also be nice thing to have, for example:
http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/nktagcloud/
>the origin of this crimewave is in the EU regulation system,
law and order can be brougt to iceland by an autopsy of the entire financial system
Ólafur Thor and the new prosercutor team are deep into this with guidance of Eva Joly finally being listened to after she did threatean to resign.
http://silfuregils.eyjan.is//2009/08/03/greinin-eftir-joly-a-ensku/
>a street court will have no problem passing sentence on the people who did this to the country and make sure this can not be repeated.
EU burecrats do not live in Iceland although they do now have an embassy ( of course burcrats expected Lisbon Treaty to be force through ) and I do not think bringing street justice to the people working there is right.
We will never know exactly which burecrats did write the regulations because there is no personal responsbility in the EU machinery. That is how it is designed to be.
Kicking current traitors in Icelandic government seats out of office is fair enough punishment for them.
Never again will this hard left wingers be trusted in governemnt. They have blown up they only chance for power as now people are beginning remember what life was like before Davið ideas did change things for better.
As to any other ideas, there is police cells and judge waiting for those with acting out such ideas.
“? By entering the EU, could EU financial standards and regulations actually bring financial “law and order” to Iceland?”
Hardly, the origin of this crimewave is in the EU regulation system,
law and order can be brougt to iceland by an autopsy of the entire financial system, we need to bring the guilty people to justice and review all connections to the EU, the gov has a limited timeframe to do this, if nothing happens in the next few months the people will take over and finish this, a street court will have no problem passing sentence on the people who did this to the country and make sure this can not be repeated.
>Fish, aluminum smelter using energy, future oil and gas that will come from Drekki, etc.
This is the post I meant to post to — I found it finally :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/04/26/iceland-elections-conclusion/#comment-74266
>( Mike UK Nordic analyst did make points about supervision of Icelandic FME but I cant find link to that now thanks to useless search facility at IceNews. )
Ok I found it finanlly :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/09/28/british-and-dutch-stance-on-icesave-hardening/#comment-104260
Why must it take me nearly * an hour * of searching on and the off to find these posts ?
Alex when is new.icenews.is going to be live ? I can hardly stand this any more.
Finally! We can always go back and change it after we get the rest of our IMF money! Plus, kreppa will hit UK by then…
EU has expressed time and time again their sympathy with Iceland and their chances of joining. EU knows of the debts of the Icelandic state of which Icesave is a part. Under current circumstances Iceland could never fulfill the conditions for joining. Ergo: EU is willing to help, Frankfurt will offer to refinance in some way the debts under more favourable conditions if Iceland expresses willingness to cooperate and work on to work on their credibility. It is very naive from the no-sayers and the InDefence organization to assume that a small island can function alone. The decision taken is absolutely the right one.
As Mike UK Noridic Analyst did say the lesson we have learned is that we must earn foreign currency, dont borrow it.
And the best way is to get free trade agreement with other countries and also to make best use of our location for things like the data centers, the Dorrit idea art storage place, the between US and EU conference center, etc.
Fish, aluminum smelter using energy, future oil and gas that will come from Drekki, etc.
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/04/29/international-interest-in-iceland’s-eu-position-persists/#comment-74173
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/04/29/international-interest-in-iceland’s-eu-position-persists/#comment-74711
>What will the public think about it in a longer perspective?
Bjarni has one of his usual good post about this :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/12/29/icesave-debate-paused-progress-expected-today/
>Will this make the majority of the Icelandic elecorate vote against a membership of the EU when this issue comes up for a referendum?
Icelanders see the EU moving further further away from them. EU commission has treated Icelander in whole IceSave dipsute and as it intends to treat them later and just we have seen the way that the EU works.
That is that the big country does make the rules. And now under Lisbon treaty we see that even more as qualified majority voting does become the rule.
Inside the EU we would have to go from our under 10% of EU regulations we have now under EEA ( financial regulations mostly we have now look how good they were for us ) to 100% of EU regulations with all the costs of that.
And we would still have the same influence we have now basically inside the EU as our population mean that under EU voting rules we have less than 0.4% influence.
Right now at least we have 10% of EU regulations costs, access to EU markets but still the ability to make free trade agreement with any country we like. Under EU we are banned from that as in EU trade agreement comes only from EU commission.
>By entering the EU, could EU financial standards and regulations actually bring financial “law and order” to Iceland?
EU financial standards and regulations arrennt up to much. The EU burecrats did allow some horrible flawed concepts and ideas in their work.
Please do read into the facts here — Iceland did adopt all of the EU financial regulations with one minor exception :
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/09/24/david-oddsson-becomes-newspaper-editor/#comment-103454
And look what those regulations and the gaps between them — specifically EU Directive 94/19/EC have done for us — a huge sovereign debt and dispuite with country — UK — that we did respect and like ( although that mainly has to do with huge bad faith of Brown and Darling who are of course part of Scottish ” Tartan Mafia ” that has been in UK government chairs for some years now ).
( Mike UK Nordic analyst did make points about supervision of Icelandic FME but I cant find link to that now thanks to useless search facility at IceNews. )
Harald of Norway did write :
>What does the public think about this deal, apart from those 35 000 who signed the petition against it?
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/12/19/majority-in-iceland-want-to-reject-icesave-bill/#comment-106696
It is now at 46,000 against.
The majority of Icelandic people are against the current IceSave ” deal ” ( 5.5 % interests etc ) and if it does go to referendum ( by our president refusing to sign into law ) it will be defeated.
But that is not the same as saying that Icelander should not pay its debts as a liability does exist because we have for many years since 1994 signed and operated according to the EEA ( European Economic Area Agreement ).
What is being rejected by Icelanders now is the current IceSave ” deal ” made in all the incompetence of the Iceland Red-Green government ” negotiators ” with the ( word I think is ) rapacious British and Dutch governenments.
It is that deal that every one is against.
Icelanders do want to see this IceSave case in front of a court.
That should be Icelandic court then up to the EFTA Court ( as has happened with the Icelandic emergency banking law ) first.
Whole issue of IceSave has * not * been in front of a court yet. And it has needed to be desparatly ever since the fateful days in October 2008 despite EU commission failed attempts to crush that in November 2008.
https://www.icenews.is/index.php/2009/12/28/third-and-final-icesave-debate-begins/#comment-107543
A close result! So, now over to the president to decide whether a referendum is in order. No doubt it’s the biggest decision of his life.
Why does the USA doesn’t pay for Lehman Brothers, but Iceland pay for Icesave?
To Harald Bull-Hanssen:
Nice set of questions. Here are some quick answers:
>>>>What does the public think about this deal, apart from those 35 000 who signed the petition against it?
In polls I have seen so far, about 60-70 percent of the population has been against the IceSave agreement and about 15-20% have been for it.
>>>>What will the public think about it in a longer perspective?
It will depend on what happens in the next few years. If everything goes well, they will not worry much about it. But if anything goes bad and Iceland gets into trouble because of it, they will hate it.
The way the agreement is written, if Icelandic government gets into trouble with any of its other debt (about 130% GDP), the whole IceSave loan can be canceled and become immediately payable (resulting in immediate sovereign default).
>>>>Will this make the majority of the Icelandic elecorate vote against a membership of the EU when this issue comes up for a referendum?
EU has of course not gained much favor in Iceland in the past few months, but that is not the main issue about EU membership. Instead it will mainly be how the fishing rights are handled during the negotiations.
If the Iceland retains control over the fishing stocks, it has at least a chance of passing. If not, EU membership has almost no chance of passing.
Another issue is that the smaller government party, the Left-Greens, are mostly dead-set against EU membership, as well as most of the old-guard of the Independence party, which might mean it might not have majority in the parliament.
>>>>Or will a majority rather blame the insufficient Icelandic financial guarantees which seems to be the actual reason for the Icesave situation?
The majority of Icelanders, basically place blame on almost everyone involved: The banks, the governments (both former and current), the parliament, the regulatory agencies, the central bank, the “vikings”, the foreign banks, the EU regulations, the UK government. Of course, none of these are willing to take any of the blame themselves.
>>>>By entering the EU, could EU financial standards and regulations actually bring financial “law and order” to Iceland?
As far as I know, Iceland being a member of the EEA, almost every financial standard and regulation by the EU, was already implemented, so I am not sure how entering EU would change anything on this particular issue.
The only issue I can think of, is that according to the IceSave agreement, Iceland is not allowed to start another Deposit Insurance fund (the old one is kind of bankrupt), so I am not sure how that will be handled for the new banks (two of those are now already owned by the creditors of the old banks).
I sincerely hope that Mr. Olafur Rangar Grimsson will listen to the voices of the people and not the politicians who have just sold their souls in order to gain eventual seats in European Parliament.
Very unwise decision. No the Iceland people pay the price of €11,000 per capita to save the souls of the dishonest bankers and the greed of the people who wanted more interest for their money. The dishonest Iceland Bankers should be made to pay with their ill-gotten fortunes instead of being protected against prosecution and being allowed to continuing living like kings at the cost of the Iceland people. Where is the LAW? When I was in Iceland, I saw that a man had been imprisoned for stealing a bowl of soup…
[…] Read more here: The Icelandic Parliament, Althingi, says yes to Icesave | IceNews … […]
Why would UK and Dutch citizens who had money invested become a victim of the poor monitoring of the banks by the Icelandic government?
This is the government the Icelandic people voted for.
Iceland overplayed their banking hand, and it is now time to sit on the blisters.
Finally the Icesave agreement between Iceland, the Netherlands and Britain was approved by the Icelandic parliament – the Althingi. What does the public think about this deal, apart from those 35 000 who signed the petition against it? What will the public think about it in a longer perspective? Will this make the majority of the Icelandic elecorate vote against a membership of the EU when this issue comes up for a referendum? Or will a majority rather blame the insufficient Icelandic financial guarantees which seems to be the actual reason for the Icesave situation? By entering the EU, could EU financial standards and regulations actually bring financial “law and order” to Iceland?
Helvitis Fokking Fokk
What is he, George Bush?
>”Approving the bill is the better option and will avoid even more economic damage,” Steingrimur Sigfusson, Finance Minister and leader of the Left-Green party said during the debate.
“History will show that we are doing the right thing.”
I do hope that the President and Icelanders will now accept their obligation, and move forward to a position of rebuilding their credibility and the trust of others in them.