Icelandic President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson defended his decision on Thursday to veto the law on refunding money to foreign depositors who lost their funds due to the collapse of the Icelandic bank Icesave, emphasizing that it is a “democratic” decision.
‘In the Netherlands and many other European countries, referendums have been held on important issues. I do not see why the democratic path, a referendum, would not be good,’ Grimsson told the Financial Times. Olafur Ragnar Grimsson also promised that Iceland would fulfill its obligations regarding Icesave, but the manner in which this could be done is disputed. British and Dutch depositors, nearly 320,000 of them, lost the money they deposited in the Icelandic bank Icesave, which went bankrupt in October 2008. The governments of these two countries refunded the depositors’ lost money and requested Iceland to reimburse them.
