Icesave: a step closer
Today, the Independence Party has declared that it will back the Icesave guarantee bill, now debated in Althingi. That means that even though some of the government’s own MPs might vote against it it’s now certain (bar unforeseen events) that Althingi will pass the bill.
The last hurdle will be the president: he might possibly do like a year ago and refuse to sign the Icesave guarantee bill. However, the political heat seems have evaporated from the Icesave issue now, making it more likely that he will sign. The president never speaks on the Icesave with the Icelandic media (or they don’t ask him) but he’s been very willing to air his views abroad. His recent remarks on Bloomberg seem to indicate that he will sign.
If all this comes to pass, Icesave might soon be a thing of the past, after blighting the political (and other) debate in Iceland since October 2008 when the country suddenly realised that the clever Icesave deposits that Landsbanki had been so proud of actually were a millstone around the neck of the whole nation.
Follow me on Twitter for running updates.
I still have a lot of sympathy for Thor Saari, who considers it morally wrong for the nation’s taxpayers to bear the cost of a private bank’s wicked excesses.
Rik Hardy
3 Feb 11 at 12:24 am
There will be many Icelanders who side with this view. However, looking at the story of Icesave it seems clear that the Icelandic government backed Landsbanki and indicated that these deposits were completely safe. In that way, it could also be said to be morally wrong not to pay the minimun guarantee. Recent polls indicate that half of Icelanders think it should be paid and half think it shouldn’t. – There are certainly weighty pros and cons on this issue but Icesave is no longer the burning issue it was a year ago.
Sigrún Davíðsdóttir
3 Feb 11 at 1:03 am