Ms Sigurdardottir said that it was “unfair” that the IMF and Nordic donors had made access to additional aid conditional on Iceland’s resolving the Icesave issue. But the prime minister voiced hope that the IMF review would start “within the next few weeks”.
In written answers to FT questions, she said that the UK and Dutch authorities “cannot wash their hands” of regulatory responsibility for the failures of Icelandic banks that operated in Britain and the Netherlands.
She suggested that the UK was contradicting Mr Brown’s own principles by making Icelanders pay for the mistakes of a private Icelandic bank. “The British prime minister has said that it’s not the general public that should suffer from the wrongdoings of the banks but the banks should compensate the public. Obviously he does not count the Icelandic public in [that].”
About time!
Related posts:
- Financial Times: Iceland After A Year Of Financial Crisis
- Sunday Times Book Review: Meltdown Iceland: How the Global Financial Crisis Bankrupted an Entire Country
- Landsbankinn Assured The Dutch That Iceland Would Pay
- Time’s 25 people to blame for the financial crisis: David Oddson
- Forbes: UK charities struggle with Iceland losses
andy
2 years ago
what is the EC legal opinion upon the Icelandic states liability foir the first 20k of Euros? Simple question and answer.
Bromley86
2 years ago
Simple question, difficult answer.
Everything coming from the EU, including the opinion of the unofficial arbitration, is that they are liable. But then there is a certain reticence to take it to court. I suspect that that is because the UK/NL would prefer the certainty of an agreement now than leaving themselves open to the possibility that a court case would fail, especially as (as far as I can see) most of the risk of the current delays falls on the Icelandic economy.
>”The British prime minister has said that it’s not the general public that should suffer from the wrongdoings of the banks but the banks should compensate the public. Obviously he does not count the Icelandic public in [that].”
Naturally. They are, after all, the ***Icelandic*** public, whereas he is the ***British*** PM. Either you want to be a part of something larger, be it as a province of a country or a member of a federation of countries, or you don’t. So far it has been don’t and, like opting not to insure, that means that you take the rough with the smooth.
Actually, I’m never too sure what to make of the FT on Iceland. They really seem to have a reporting problem; whether it’s a bias pro-Iceland (but why?), a bias anti-Labour (fair enough) or just the result of sloppy reporting, I don’t know. For example, this was in the other FT article “Steamy waters”:
“Moscow was the first foreign power to rush to the aid of Reykjavik last October, with a €4bn loan a day after the crisis erupted.”
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/cff211ee-b20f-11de-a271-00144feab49a.html
Redmar Peterson
2 years ago
Iceland is a disgrace!
The Dutch Bank, DNB, has the repeatedly warned the Icelandic government, 2006 and 2007, about the enormous amount of money going from Europe to Iceland. The answer of the Icelandic Goverment the Dutch got was: “WE CAN MANAGE, MIND YOUR OWN BUSINESS !!”
Iceland should simply repay her debts !
Iceland is a disgrace to civilization. Now they like to be part of
the EU because they think to get easy money