Sífellt eru að koma fram fleiri atriði um hversu slaklega ríkisstjórnir Íslands hafa haldið á málum undanfarin ár, en hafa til þess að réttlæta sig síðan haldið ranghugmyndum að Íslendingum.
Var að fá árskýrslu Eftirlitstofnunar EFTA. Í formála Per Sanderud forseta stendur m.a. um athafnir ríkisstjórna Íslands undanfarin ár „Á árinu 2008 áttu sér stað afdrifaríkar breytingar á efnahagsumhverfi í heiminum sem mun hafa áhrif á starfsemi Eftirlitsstofnunar EFTA á komandi árum.
Á árinu sendi stofnunin mörg áminningarbréf til aðildarríkjanna og fleiri rökstudd álit en nokkru sinni fyrr. Líkt og árið 2007 á þessi mikli málafjöldi að mestu rætur sínar að rekja til tafa á innleiðingu reglugerða á Íslandi.
Í því skyni að auka traust almennings á störfum stofnunarinnar var ákveðið að setja nýjar reglur um aðgang að upplýsingum hjá stofnuninni og koma á fót málaskrá sem yrði aðgengileg fyrir almenning.“
Ranghugmyndum hefur einnig verið haldið að Íslendingum um að Evrópusambandið hafi beitt Íslendinga þvingunum vegna Icesave reikninganna, ég hef reyndar komið að þessu ítrekað í pistlum hér á síðunni.
Percy Westerlund, sendiherra ESB gagnvart Íslandi og Noregi, svarar þessu á bloggi sínu :
I recently received a comment by one of the Icelandic readers of this blog, Björgvin Víglundsson, who expresses concern that the EU applied political pressure to make the Icelandic government accept responsibility to compensate foreign Icesave depositors. He wonders why the EU could not accept the Icelandic suggestion of court settlement of the matter. The reason, he suggests, was that the EU feared it would lose a court case.
The truth of the matter is that not only all available expertise in Brussels agreed that Iceland had this responsibility. In fact, the Icelandic government itself apparently accepted that this was the case. In response to a question by MP Siv Friðleifsdóttir in the Althingi, two letters sent to the British Treasury by the Icelandic government on August 20 and October 6 were made public. In these letters, which can be found at the Althingi website, the government confirms without qualifications that it would be responsible if the guarantee fund would be inadequate to cover for bank failure. The EU would undoubtedly have prevailed in court, but it is rather obvious that a drawn-out court case would have been neither helpful nor necessary.
One might add that the Icelandic government had the responsibility to compensate foreign Icesave depositors regardless of how you interpret the directive. This is because the Icelandic government announced it would offer domestic depositors guarantees for deposits in Icelandic banks. There is little doubt that there is then an obligation in principle to offer depositors in these banks’ foreign branches equal treatment. Non-discrimination is a fundamental principle for the internal market, thus also for the EEA.
I think every Icelander can appreciate the importance of this principle if they try to imagine how they would react if the “shoe had been on the other foot”. If Icelanders had been tempted by promises of high interest rates to make deposits into internet branches of British or Dutch banks, how would they expect to be treated if these banks went bankrupt? If the British or Dutch government promised domestic depositors guarantees, would Icelanders (or their government) accept that they would be ignored?
The most constructive way forward is undoubtedly the one taken by the Icelandic government, namely to engage in direct negotiations with the British, Dutch and German governments to try to reach the best possible deal. The scope of the Icesave liability is hard to estimate, partly because we do not yet know the value of the remaining assets of Landsbanki. There is some speculation that the final debt figure may not be as high as initially thought. But regardless of that, I think most Icelanders will agree that we need to work together in a spirit of constructive engagement and solidarity. It is fair to say that the EU has already demonstrated such a spirit when the French Presidency and the Commission helped to negotiate the mutually agreed guidelines, which now serve as basis for the bilateral Icesave negotiations. Several member states of the EU also made significant contributions to the IMF package for Iceland.
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