Sources close to the AFP have confirmed that talks between Iceland, the Netherlands and the UK over Icesave will begin around the beginning of next month.
There have been no talks between the countries since early July, when Dutch and British representatives came to Iceland for informal talks. Before then, there had been no official negotiations since a presidential veto and a subsequent national referendum last spring defeated the Icesave law passed in parliament last December.
To many Iceland, there was perhaps a hope that the matter would quietly go away, but the European Union’s agreement to begin accession talks with Iceland brought the matter to the forefront again.
EU officials have maintained that Icesave will have no bearing whatsoever on the accession talks. However, they did emphasize that depositors being able to withdraw at least as much money as they put into their bank accounts is a fundamental right. They also emphasized that EFTA guidelines obligate Iceland to settle the matter.
Many Icelanders, while in favor of repaying Icesave, are resistant to the idea of it being paid through tax money; rather, they’d prefer it be repaid by the bank managers who caused Icesave to collapse in autumn 2008.