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.
--
Dr Nicholas Aylott, senior lecturer (docent) in political science
School of Social Sciences, Södertörn University, Stockholm
SE-141 89 Huddinge, Sweden
www.sh.se/statsvetenskap
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