Icesavesamningar ólögmætir

Eftir bankahrunið kynnti ég mér skilmála tryggingasjóðs innistæðureikninga og gat ekki komið auga á það að íslenska ríkið ætti að bera ábyrgð á innistæðum í Icesave. Mín skoðun er sú að ekki hafi verið gengið til samninga af heilindum eða með velferð þjóðarinnar í huga við Breta og Hollendinga. Ég fann komment á bloggi sem er skrifað af Steve Johnson en hann styður þann málflutning sem ég hef haft upp. Ég vil hér koma á framfærið athugasemdum Steves og hvet fólk til þess að mótmæla þeim ósóma sem skuldbindingar vegna innistæðureikninga eru.

En Steve segir í skrifum sínum:

The devil is in the details. Those letters linked to in the blog do not represent a confirmation without qualification that the Icelandic government would be *responsible* in the event that the guarantee fund was inadequate to cover the bank failure. It does say (*emphasis added*):

"would do everything that any responsible government would do in such a situation"

"including *assisting* the Fund in raising the necessary funds"

"In such a case [a bank run on a solvent bank], the Central Bank of Iceland as a lender of last resort *may* provide liquidity assistance"

"If needed the Icelandic Government will *support* the Depositors' and Investors' Guarantee Fund in raising the necessary funds"

None of those statements say that the government will accept responsibility for the guarantee. They do say that it will assist, support and generally do what is right, but would a "responsible government" take on massive state debt that it was not required to just as its economy exploded?

They certainly do not carry any weight when compared to a statement in a conversation between the finance ministers of two countries. When responding to Darling's direct question on the EEA guarantee, Mathiesen said, "Well, I hope that will be the case. I cannot visibly state that or guarantee that now". That is not a guarantee, nor is it a statement of intent to be responsible for the guarantee. It is a statement that he's like to try, but that he can't promise anything. He's very honest about it, "So we must first deal with the domestic situation, and then we will certainly try to do what we possibly can".

Oddsson's statements on Icelandic TV were not helpful, but they are not unequivocal. When he talked about the debts of the banks, he may have been talking about the EEA guarantee, but he could just as easily have been talking about those debts not covered by the guarantee. Haarde was much clearer on Oct 8th when, in response to a direct question on what Iceland would guarantee, he refused to say that they would honour the deposit guarantee (03:11 - 03:24).

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/7658417.stm

So Icelandic government had no intention of guaranteeing the guarantee.

What of the relevent EU law - directive 94/19/EC? A quick read of the relevant paragraph would support the Icelandic position that the government was not responsible. It seems that the EU has taken the position that to "ensure" the schemes requires the governments to back them.

"Whereas this Directive may not result in the Member States' or their competent authorities' being made liable in respect of depositors if they have ensured that one or more schemes guaranteeing deposits or credit institutions themselves and ensuring the compensation or protection of depositors under the conditions prescribed in this Directive have been introduced and officially recognized"

http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=CELEX:31994L0019:EN:HTML

 

>Those who spread the false notion that the EU has somehow "forced" Iceland to compensate foreign Icesave depositors are simply ignoring the basic facts,

Whether the Icelandic government intended to not take responsibility for the compensation scheme before or after the "attack" on them, it is clear that by November that was certainly their position. Just as it is clear that the EU did in fact have to force them to take on that responsibility by blocking any IMF decision. I'm not sure how you can ignore that.

Athugasemdir

[TH (IP-tala skráð) 5.3.2009 kl. 17:11]

Það sem vakti fyrir Sjálfstæðisflokknum með samningunum var að tryggja að þess yrði ekki krafist að helstu styrktaraðilar þeirra í Landsbankanum yrðu ekki krafðir um greiðslu fyrir ófyrirgefanlega fjárglæfra með "ábyrgðir" ríkissjóðs.

Af hverju er ríkisstjórnin ekki búinn að krefjast þess að ráðandi eigendur Landsbankans, bankastjórar og stjórnarmenn greiði Icesave reikninginn?

Hvað með manninn sem Geir H. Haarde sagði að "hann reyndi að hitta þegar hann væri á landinu"?  Var hann ekki á einhverjum topplista yfir ríkustu menn heims en hann lætur skuldina falla á "fjallkonuna"?

Þessir menn eru þjóðarskömm!