Minister of Finance Steingrímur J. Sigfússon told reporters that he believes the Icesave bill will pass, despite very even divisions in parliament over the matter. He added that he does not expect more members of his party to oppose its passage.
The bill went back to the Finance Committee last week for more fine tuning. It will go to the floor of parliament for a third and final debate. It is already unclear whether or not the bill will even pass – two members of the ruling coalition, Leftist-Greens Ögmundur Jónasson and Lilja Mósesdóttir, voted against the bill in its current form. Also, a third Leftist-Green MP, Ásmundur Einar Daðason, told reporters that he has doubts about voting for the bill in the third debate. As the ruling coalition only holds 34 of parliament’s 64 seats, no-votes from these three Leftist-Green MPs would effectively defeat the bill, unless unaffiliated MP Þráinn Bertelsson votes for it, as he did during the previous round of votes.
The opposition currently demands that 16 separate details of the bill be worked out before it be allowed to return to the floor of parliament. The ruling coalition, by contrast, wants to get the bill onto the floor by the end of next week. Whether or not both sides in committee will end up satisfied remains to be seen.