Just a quick resumé of political developments in the Nordic countries so far this year

Just a quick resumé of political developments in the Nordic countries so far this year.

 

* The situation in ICELAND, as most will know, is dramatic, since President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson declared on January 5th, to general amazement outside the country, that he would veto the Icelandic government's deal with its British and Dutch counterparts over Icesave, the subsidiary of Landesbanki, one of the Icelandic banks that collapsed so spectacularly last year.

 

The legal basis on which Britain and the Netherlands are demanding compensation for their bailing out Icesave customers in their own countries remains, as far as I can understand, open to very different views. But it is the terms of the agreement that are really at issue. One of the founders of the domestic campaign against the deal, InDefence.is, writing in the FT on January 10th, reckoned that his compatriots would have to stump up 50 per cent of Iceland's gross domestic product, "equivalent to a bill of €12,000 ($17,000, £11,000) per person...The interest on top of this is an eye-watering annual rate of 5.55 per cent. A year's interest equals the running cost of the Icelandic healthcare system for six months."

 

Grimsson's veto can be overridden by parliament if it wins a referendum on the issue. Assuming that the referendum, which has now been set for March 6th, does take place, it will be the first time that this constitutional provision has been activated by an Icelandic president. A No in the vote might well doom Iceland's immediate prospects of joining the EU. The coalition of the social democratic Alliance and the Left-Green Movement might also be in danger, because the latter party is very lukewarm about the Icesave deal.

 

* In DENMARK, too, there was some drama a couple of days ago when one of the Danish People's Party's MPs, Christian H. Hansen, defected from his party to sit as an independent in parliament. He cited his party leadership's lack of interest in climate change and prioritisation of Muslim-related issues rather than economic ones. (Separately, Liberal prime minister Lars Løkke Rasmussen said this week that, regardless of how few women in Denmark actually wear them, the Islamic burka and niqab have no place in Danish society.)

 

This deprives the government of Liberals and Conservatives, plus the supporting Danish People's Party, of its parliamentary majority. However, Hansen promised to continue supporting the government, as has another independent MP, a former Conservative. A Faroese MP also made the same pledge. So the government does not yet have to turn to the three MPs of the failing Liberal Alliance. An election is likely at some stage this year. (Thanks to Jacob Christensen and Flemming Juul Christiansen for their observations on this.)

 

* Meanwhile, the fun is starting in FINLAND, since Matti Vanhanen, the Centre Party leader and prime minister, announced over Christmas that he would stand down at this June's party congress. Not only has the initial frontrunner, environment minister Paula Lehtomäki, announced that she won't be a candidate to replace him. More excitingly, trade minister Paavo Väyrynen, who previously lead the party in 1980-90, has thrown his hat into the ring. When asked how he intended to lead the party to victory in the election that is due in 2011, Värynen, 63, told Hbl that "I would emphasise ideology more than Vanhanen has, and I will also make use of the mature man's charm."

 

Värynen is a controversial figure, and eyebrows have been raised about his candidacy, not least in the other coalition parties. One Conservative MP expressed it with nice understatement. "It is up to the Centre Party to choose its own leader," he commented, "but the prime minister must enjoy the confidence of both parliament and the government. At least in the Conservative Party, Paavo Väyrynen sparks discussion."

 

* In NORWAY, an official inquiry has been launched into "the political judicial, administrative, economic and other social consequences" of the country's position within the European Economic Area. Of the inquiry's 12 members, only one is a foreigner - a political scientist from Stockholm University.

 

* In SWEDEN, meanwhile, the parties are gearing up for the election this autumn. As it came to light, at the back end of last year, that thousands of Swedes would find their sickness benefits coming to an end, thanks to new government policy to promote its emphasis on work, the opposition "red-greens" managed to establish a decent lead in the opinion polls. This week, the red-greens' leaders published their own proposal for reforming sickness benefits. The government dismissed it as essentially a return to the old system, which permitted very high levels of apparent incapacity among the relatively healthy Swedish population.

 

The red-greens are, however, struggling to reach agreement on some policy issues, notably schools (especially marking) and defence (especially Afghanistan). Perhaps more ominously, the Left Party's representative on the joint working group on schools policy was quoted in DN on January 16th as saying that "It's not so clever to decide all these difficult questions before [the election]. The voters must have the chance to decide which influence the respective parties ought to have." That surely questions the whole point of the pre-electoral alliance that the other red-green parties, the Social Democrats and the Greens, have been so keen to build in order to match that of the centre-right coalition.

 

Nicholas Aylott.