Eva Joly has resurfaced in the media to speak on Iceland’s behalf. I venture to say she is this country’s most stalwart champion at the moment and we all love her for it.*
Here she is speaking to the NRC Handelsblad in The Netherlands:
If you do not meet Iceland halfway, only fishermen will remain on the island and you still won’t have your money back. The brain drain has begun: 8,000 highly educated people have already left the island and more will follow. It is not in our interest to impoverish Iceland. It has natural resources we might need in the future and it has a strategic location. We should not bully them, but negotiate, in a more grown up and proper fashion than we are currently doing.
Read the full article here [thanks Joerg!].
* Well, almost all of us. No doubt there are some grumpy old curmudgeons somewhere who feel differently.
Related posts:
{ 20 comments… read them below or add one }
Everyone should read the full interview. Very insightful. Eva Joly is the only public figure I know of who has called out the signifcance of Iceland’s strategic location. Make people too desperate for basic needs (food, shelter, dignity) and they become susceptible to offers they cannot refuse–a Russian military base, perhaps, or how about an Iranian one?
Some simply point out that she’s not entirely correct:
http://www.baldurmcqueen.com/index.php/2010/Joly-fer-meo-rangt-mal.html
Aha! One curmudgeon found.
At least Iceland does have some support. I recently read that Iceland still has the support of Norway.
For UK readers, 8000 highly-educated emigrants out of a population of 300,000 is equivalent to 1.6 million out of a (UK) population of 60 million. I think we would notice that!
If Iceland really is unable to pay, shouldnt the focus be on organizing an debt default rather than arguing over responsability with the brits?
If Joly is right and iceland cannot pay, isnt that the only proper option?
“and it has a strategic location”
I have emphasized this before on this blog and met opposition. I can not for the life of me understand how some people do not see this clear as day. Iceland has a very strategic location. Short range missiles come to mind? Submarines? This is a no brainer. Even in the event of Nuclear War , Iceland is the ULTIMATE launch pad.
Eva raises some good points but the assertion that 8000 people have left is a little problematic, Statistics Iceland (www.statice.is) show that the population of Iceland 1. Dec. 2008 was 319 756 and 1. Dec. 2009 it was 317 593, a reduction of little over 2000 people and bearing in mind how many immigrated to work in Iceland during 2002 to 2007 it is actually amazing that the numbers are still that high.
If Eva does her job properly then she can repatriate many times the amount of Icesave. Just one company Sjova [insurance] was milked out of a sum equal to 25% of Icesave! Most of those funds are just accruing interest in account in the Dutch Antilles (maybe not for long) or Tortola etc, and can be reclaimed just like illicit drugs money.
From January to September last year Iceland had a net migration of -2,694 people (1,949 with Icelandic citizenship) (www.statice.is). The 8,000 figure is clearly overstated.
The Icelandic Minister of Finance visited Norway today. Norwegian authorities confirmed the President’s veto did not affect the loan agreement between the two countries, nor will a ‘no’ in the upcoming referrendum.
@Sebastian & Nigel
AFAIK, it’s just been one Norwegian minister who’s said that. And, having looked into it, I can’t see anything very different in what he said compared to the Nordic party line over the past year or so (the word “commitment” has often been used as a euphemism for Icesave):
“As long as Iceland honours its commitments and continues its (economic stability) programme (agreed with the IMF in exchange for a rescue loan package), the Norwegian position is that we should do the same,” Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Stoere”
http://news.malaysia.msn.com/business/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3780960
Compare with this article by Omar Valdimarsson (who has seemed to be factual and accurate):
“Finland, Norway and Denmark all repeated on Friday that a condition for their loans is that Iceland meets its international obligations. ”
http://www.lse.co.uk/FinanceNews.asp?shareprice=&ArticleCode=dg69cvr00k3tuyb&ArticleHeadline=UPDATE_3Iceland_PM_to_trust_voters_with_Icesave_decision
Strategic positioning relates to local, regional and global power flows and offensive/defensive weapon systems (among other factors). The US military left Iceland because it no longer represented a strategic advantage to be there (precisely because of weapon systems like submarine-launched ICBM’s, not to mention the very real shifts of global power that have come about since the Cold War ended). During WWII, because of the limits on aircraft range, Iceland was crucial to the Allied (US-supported) efforts in Europe. But gradually, again, with changing weapon systems and different constellations of global power, Iceland is no longer ’strategic.’ Might be hard for some folks to swallow, pride-wise, not being ‘important’ in some global scheme, but that’s the way things go — they change. Iceland has few if any unique marketable/strategic resources as measured in the present world order. And on the other hand, they have liabilities according to globalist interests (for example, a quaint nationalism which is completely redundant in global market systems, no longer strategic travel/transport location (no need for Keflavik re-fueling!), no significant energy resources that are fiscally develop-able to the scale necessary for global competition, an education system that includes 100% literacy but is, on its own, entrenched and lacking innovative threads (and reinforcing the same naivete that gave rise to the recent disastrous foray into the global market system) … and so on…
@Bromley86:
The Icelandic Minister of Finance met with his Norwegian counterpart and the foreign minister, but only the foreign minister (and the Icelandic finance minster) met the media after the meeting.
Jonas Gahr Støre, the Norwegian foreign minister, called Iceland courageous for the commitment to meet the obligations caused by the failure of Icelandic banks. A ‘no’ in the upcoming referendum will not cause any short term consequences financially.
Iceland has already received over half of the promised loan from Norway.
(Btw., I’m Norwegian.)
Brava, Eva. What a lovely voice of reason and justice! It’s like hearing the song of a rare bird, isn’t it?
‘Hope she’s well-staffed with bodyguards again (and that Grimsson has acquired some). A pity goons have become the requisite accessory for balls.
John Hopkins, the British used Iceland during WW2 as a base for anti-submarine and convoy supporting air and naval forces, the use as a refuelling point was secondary to their effort and the importance post-war was mostly as a base for patrolling and anti-subarine air and naval assets.
I am not sure what you mean by pride-wise, I am not sure if anyone Icelandic has been writing about the strategic location of the country, you do realise that most of the commentators here are not Icelandic?
Airlines have not had to refuel in Keflavik for many decades now but transport aircraft, both civil and military use Keflavik for refuelling on a regular basis.
I am also a little curious as to what you mean by “quaint nationalism” and what your experience of the Icelandic education is?
I noted with interest Eva Joly saying if Iceland pushed too far only fishermen likely to remain, and that indeed 8,000 of Iceland’s brightest had already departed.
John.
I have made far to much emphasis on the Military Strategic thoughts here. However , I do not mean to give the intention that it is the ONLY way I imply that. Iceland IS in a very strategic location. Technology is certainly a very important area.
As far as your comments on Iceland’s energy , you need to do some more research. That’s way off base.
http://www.invest.is/resources/files/invest.is/Secure%20location.pdf
UK House of Commons Treasury Committee
Banking Crisis: The impact of the failure of the Icelandic banks
31 March 2009 Word document:
http://www.parliament.uk/documents/upload/BankingCrisisMemos250209.doc
Read paragraphs 44, 45, 48, 49, 51, 56, 69.
Also see page 45.
Siggi — The British only occupied for a year before the US took over all operations. The ship-based anti-submarine work was limited because of the cost of using Iceland as a ship-refueling base (it was expensive enough to transport and store aircraft fuel), so it was only a stop-over point, and emergency ship base. Most of the American occupation was concentrated on airborne issues (including submarine patroling by air).
Yes, I do know that many posters are non-Icelanders, the
I started the new media area at MHî in the early 1990’s and was a member of the Icelandic Teachers Union and am a member of SIM, the Union of Icelandic Artists and worked quite a bit with the startup crew of Ismennt (building the first website for MHI in 1993-4), etc. I also chaired the US/IS Fulbright commission and worked with the then Minister of Education Bjarni (ach, name slips my mind)… I’ve got plenty of experience in Icelandic society. Worked with my father-in-law out of Hrísey on his fishing boat. Toured the country a lot photographing. And my son has gone through the dagskolí-thru-Menntaskolî system. Cactus, my first career was in the geophysics and economics of geothermal energy production, so I did interact with the Orkastofnun people regularly (one of them at that time was a graduate student at the engineering school I went to in the US). I have done several cost analysis of different geothermal resource bases globally…
As for quaint nationalism — I say this in juxtaposition to the (often) aggressive nationalism of major nation-states, but also from, for example, the following experience: when I first moved there in the late 1980’s where, as I learned the language, I came across an cover article in the weekend magazine to the dominant national newspaper Morgunbladid (now headed by our favorite person, the former PM and Central Bank chair Oddsson as Alda has noted). The cover contained the text: “Icelanders are the
Strongest, most Beautiful, and Smartest people in the world.” I translated this from Icelandic, and with difficulty started to read the article. I had thought it would be a satirical look at some cultural critique or so (thinking NY Times or New Yorker article). After I got bogged down with understanding what I was reading, amused at the headline, I asked my wife, a native, what it was about.
Turns out is was a dead serious article outlining why the headline was a verity… (enough said)…
John, thank you for the answer.
I think you misunderstand the Icelandic humour when you think that an article like you describe above was intended seriously.
As for the British in WW2 , their naval and airforces stayed in Iceland to the end of the war and a large part of the anti-submarine and escort support provided for convoys to the UK and the USSR was Iceland based (most of the convoys bound for the USSR assembled in Iceland)
The USA based a number of ships, including battleships and cruisers, in Iceland for distanst convoy support in addition to the anti-submarine duties and they also kept numbers of ground troops
, including a whole infantry division so I would not say they only used the country as a staging post.