Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir said a national government, a coalition of all parties, is not the solution to the problem Iceland is currently facing. The first goal, in her view, is to reach reconciliation on ways to tackle the trouble of indebted households.
Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir. Photo by Páll Kjartansson.
The cabinet met for almost three hours yesterday morning and afterwards the PM met with five ministers to find solutions to the problems facing homeowners. In the afternoon she met with the leaders of the opposition to discuss the problem further, visir.is reports.
MP for The Movement Thór Saari told visir.is after the meeting that the government had not gone far enough in their ideas, while chairman of the Progressive Party Sigmundur Davíd Gunnlaugsson said they were in the right direction although more needs to be done.
Gunnlaugsson said the opposition is always prepared to support good ideas from the government but the problem is that the government has not been prepared to look at any ideas from the opposition so far.
Chairman of the Independence Party Bjarni Benediktsson said it would be best to call for immediate parliamentary elections.
PM Sigurdardóttir told Fréttabladid that she is disappointed in how the opposition reacted to the meeting. “I was disappointed in hearing the representatives of the opposition calling this meeting a show-off—that does not indicate a will to cooperate. I am being serious and I called for cooperation in sincerity.”
“I suggested that the opposition parties would each have their representative in a committee with five ministers—and for five ministers to have a seat shows the importance of it. The opposition was meant to have full access until the problem has been solved. They were not eager, but I don’t want to take it off the table yet,” she added.
The committee met at 9 am and the opposition was invited to join the meeting. “I don’t know if they will show up, we will have to see about that,” Sigurdardóttir commented yesterday.
The Interest Association of Households was invited to the Government Offices to discuss the problems facing homeowners at 10 am today.
Click here to read more about the housing problem.
