Iceland compensation petition: Your comments

Dutch and British savers lost money when the Icesave scheme failed

Almost a quarter of voters in Iceland have signed a petition against plans to repay 3.8bn euros (£3.4bn) lost by foreigners when an Icelandic online bank collapsed.

The petition urges the president to veto the bill that allows the move, and calls for a referendum on the issue.

We have been asking BBC news website readers for their views on the issue. Please find a selection of their comments below.

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Although I support the present government, I consider that the Icesave agreement should be put to a referendum. This is one of the oldest democracies in the world. This is such a serious matter that any agreement must be made with the general public. I was one of the first to sign this petition.
Michael J Clarke, Akureyri

I think that this petition is a wake up call for the president. He should not agree to this deal. It is terribly unfair that the Icelandic taxpayers of a country of just 300,000 people should pay for a private company, as Landsbanki was. In my opinion the matter should go to court and the court should decide if Iceland is obligated to pay this and then if that is the case then they should pay if they can.
Kristn Helgadóttir, Gardabaer

We want a fair deal that gives the country the possibility to recover from the crisis but at the same time repay the debt Tverhaus, Reykjavik

This is not entirely correct, most people want to pay back the Icesave debt. But it is impossible paying back at a 5.5% interest rate. We want a fair deal that gives the country the possibility to recover from the crisis but at the same time repay the debt. In Britain the insurance fund that pays out for failed banks receives loans at a 2% interest rate but in Iceland we receive these at a 5% interest rate - so the cost of the interest only would be equal to all our export income per year for the next 15 years. Anyone who looks at this and thinks a bit sees that the country is being sentenced to poverty for the decades to come. But make no mistake, citizens in Iceland want to pay back the debt but we need to be sure our children will receive medical care in the future and that they have a chance to go to decent schools.
Tverhaus, Reykjavik

British and Dutch governments must understand that the ordinary individual in Iceland had nothing to do with the collapse of the banks in Iceland. The banks were owned by private investors and most of them live in London. These governments should go ahead and get them. Why should I as an individual be responsible for how private investors run their business? You must understand there is a limit to what 320,000 people can pay and at the same time survive. Why did the British government not do or say anything until it was too late?
Jona Bjarkan, Gardabaer

I did not sign the petition. If we don't agree upon this bill, international capitalism will force us into even worse conditions which might lead to the bankruptcy of the nation.
Magnus Bjarnason

The fact is that Iceland has been one of, if not the hardest hit countries of the global crisis. Iceland has been manipulated by the negotiators of Britain and the Netherlands to commit to an agreement that is not fair and is most likely too costly for the small economy. Proving this is the interest rate of more than 5% - the governments need to be fair in order for this matter to be resolved and settled! Lower the interest to 1% and this would enable the people to accept the deal and the country will be able to repay over time and recover. This was a private bank and should have also been properly regulated by the local authorities - this is a bad and sad situation that must be resolved amicably.
Concerned Citizen, Garðabæ

The population of Iceland is forced to pay five times the per capita amount that the population of Germany was made to pay for starting a war which killed millions of people and devastated large parts of Belgium and France. The Icelandic taxpayers' crime? Living in a country with a large, unregulated finance industry.
Gunnar Gunnarsson, Borgarnes

We need to make peace with our neighbours and re-establish trade and business Sigurdur Palsson, Reykjavik

I live in Iceland and did not sign the petition, because we need to make peace with our neighbours and re-establish trade and business. But is it fair? It is generally accepted that the state is responsible for the operation of the Icelandic banks and that a lot of innocent people abroad have suffered as a consequence of the collapse. But most people in Iceland were unaware of the activity of the bankers and the incompetent handling of the Icelandic authorities at the time, and feel that part of the guilt should be shared by those abroad who were also instrumental in generating this collapse of Icelandic society. This includes the EU regulators, the analysts who should have seen what was happening but didn't, those who saw but didn't act and the professionals investing huge amounts of public funds in banks supported by a population of 320,000. If my family is to pay 60,000 euros in compensation we would like to see all the guilty parties brought to justice.
Sigurdur Palsson, Reykjavik

People here in Iceland are not happy with taking on this debt incurred by a private bank, especially after the use of the terrorist act devalued the assets of Landsbanki and made the fall of Kaupthing inevitable. What the nation is protesting against with the petition is not, however, the question of paying or not but the terms of payment. A bill has already been passed regarding the repayment of the debt but including terms which guaranteed that if economic growth was limited or negative the payments would be reduced. The interest alone on the payment is about half the amount of what Iceland spends on universal health care. It is not that the Icelandic people do not want to pay - they want to pay as much as they can without bankrupting the country.
Gudmundur R. Bjornsson, Hafnarfjordur

I think that our president must agree this deal, albeit against his will and that of most of us here - he has no other options. When Gordon Brown used a terrorist law on our small country, I personally found it very degrading. Shortly after that I had to go to a conference in Sweden, and I no longer felt like a proud Icelander. Some people even made terrorist jokes when I told them that I was from Iceland. Thanks to those few people that controlled those private banks, me and my children will now have to pay for this all and we had nothing to do with it. Happy new year!
Eysteinn Harry Sigursteinsson, Hafnarfjörður

A plea to Dutch and British Icesave savers. Go after the the former owners of Landsbanki and leave Icelandic taxpayers alone. They did not take your money. I am an Icelandic mother of five, and grandmother of 14, living in Norway. I know how hard it is to live in Iceland without having to pay the Icesave savers as well. I left Iceland in 1990 when we had high inflation, and it was difficult then, but it is absolutely horrible now.
Valgerd Bagley Eiriksson, Icelander living Norway

I went to Iceland on holiday this summer and the Icelandic people are some of the friendliest I have ever come across. However, they are very bitter about the bankers and what they did to their country. They felt very strongly that the bankers should be sent to jail, but at the moment they are still free and still have their money. This bill will make everyone pay for the greed and incompetence of the bankers, which is why the people are against it. While it may seem unfair to the UK and the Netherlands if Iceland rejects this, imagine how we would feel if it were our country in this situation. Our own incompetent bankers still have the huge bonuses they were paid in previous years and now we are told we have to pay them more bonuses because they are the best people for the job. Obviously from their previous performance they are not the best. We are just lucky our bankers did not get our country into the same amount of debt as Iceland's did.
Dave Brown, Fleet, UK

We in the UK are having to pay for our banks' mistakes and greed, so why should Icelanders be protected from their banks' folly?
P Darlington, UK

The rates offered by the Icelandic banks were far higher than any other, and so had more inherent risk involved. There is an old saying: "If it looks too good to be true, it probably is." I think the consensus in Iceland is correct, and they should not bail out the savers. If British people (and councils!) wanted iron-clad security for their money, they should have invested in a FSA-approved UK-based bank with the savings guarantee, or even government-backed gilts. Greed doesn't work in this case.
Chris, Glasgow, UK

The forgotten victims of this are the many Guernsey people - mostly pensioners - who put their savings in the Guernsey branch of Icesave-Landsbanki. The authorities in London and Guernsey have completely refused to bail them out and to add insult to injury, the UK has been pushing for its town councils to have a priority creditor status over these ordinary British pensioners! The British Government has a legal and moral responsibility to help all its citizens, not just those on the mainland. St Peter Port pensioners feel the cold in winter just the same as those in London.
Nigel R, Channel Islands, UK

While it may seem unfair to the UK and the Netherlands if Iceland rejects this, imagine how we would feel if it were our country in this situation Dave Brown, Fleet, UK

If I was an Icelandic citizen I would also be against compensating British or Dutch investors - why should they be compensated? British investors could easily have invested their savings in British banks where, nearly always, their savings would have been secure. They chose to ignore greater security by accepting the higher interest rates being offered by Icesave. They therefore accepted the risk.
Ian, UK

Surely the right or wrong of repayment depends on the contract terms and guarantees in force at the time people deposited funds. If the Icelandic government guaranteed the funds, they should pay. If not, they should not. Perhaps if they were negligent they should pay, even if there were no guarantees. If people invested offshore to gain tax benefits and lost, tough.
Robert Slack, London, UK

We in the UK have also seen our government lay out massive sums of money to shore up our banking system, and are likely to be paying more tax and receiving less for it for decades to come. The Icelandic population failed to ensure their government was adequately regulating their banks and setting aside enough money to honour the compensation scheme that they had set up.
Carol, Truro, Cornwall, UK

If I were Icelandic I'd be beside myself with rage over this plan. No way should the people of Iceland be paying that money. It should be the greedy English local councils and others just like them, thinking they'd make a fast buck with taxpayers' money, that should be reimbursing the cash to us the English electorate.
Dean, Christchurch, UK

The hardworking Icelandic people should not have to pay for banks' mistakes. They have suffered enough. If shareholders or savers have lost their shares then the big bank's decision makers should go to prison. The same goes for Anglo-Irish banks. I am so tired of banks being bailed out!
M Rooney, Dublin, Irish Republic

If you don't pay people back what you owe them, then when everything has recovered people will be loathed to invest with you as they think their cash is in jeopardy Harvey Manning, Okinawa, Japan

I didn't hear these people complaining when they were driving their Range Rovers around Reykjavik. They were fully enjoying and riding the boom on borrowed money so now it's payback time.
Johan, Amsterdam, Netherlands

Thank you for the interesting but incomplete report on the banking problem in Iceland, which is certainly not confined to that country. You failed to explain why this wonderful little country should ruin itself to pay off speculators. Why can't the speculators carry the risk for their own investments? They were seeking their own profits and took their chance, the taxpayers didn't.
Monte Adair, Nidderau, Germany

If Iceland's legislation talks about a guarantee on savings in its banks - and I'm not sure whether it does - then there is no question about reimbursement. The money should be returned to savers up to the guarantee limit. Is there anything unclear about that? How can you run a referendum on your own debt? There's something wrong with ideas like these.
Alex, Slovakia

While I have sympathy with both sides, in this case I would take the long-term view if I was an Icelander, which is to say if you don't pay people back what you owe them, then at some time in the future when everything has recovered and you're looking for international business, people will be loathed to invest with you as they think their cash is in jeopardy. They would be better off ensuring the laws are in place to never let it happen again.
Harvey Manning, Okinawa, Japan

Under the Icelandic bank deposit guarantee system, the first 20,000 euro would be fully protected and repaid in case of a bank failure. When push came to shove, both the UK and Dutch governments and the central banks increased the amount covered to 100,000 euro. Iceland had no say in this matter, but must now pay the bill. I think that Iceland should repay the savers the amount guaranteed under the original Icelandic rules. This amounts to approximately one fifth or less of the 3.8bn euros, so about 650m euros. This is still an enormous amount of money for a small population.
Pieter van Pelt, Netherlands

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