French economist and politician Alain Lipietz, who is a member of the European Parliament, dismisses all criticism which MPs have expressed regarding his comments on Iceland’s Icesave responsibilities on RÚV’s political chat program Silfur Egils on Sunday.
Among points of criticism were that Lipietz had referred to Icesave as Landsbanki’s subsidiary, when in fact it was the bank’s branch in the UK and the Netherlands. Lipietz said he had only spoken of branches, Morgunbladid reports.
Lipietz said he was not one of the authors of the European Union’s directive on deposit insurances from 1994, as has been claimed in the Icelandic media.
However, he was among the authors of the 2002 directive on the supervision of financial companies and participated in the European Parliament’s last two reviews of the 1994 directive, which took place in 2005 and 2009.
That had been clearly stated on Silfur Egils, Lipietz said.
In the interview on Sunday, Lipietz stated that the Icelandic state did not have any obligation to reimburse the Icesave deposits.
Click here to watch the interview with Lipietz (in English) and here to read more about Icesave.
