Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir said that in a few days or weeks it will be evaluated whether the Social Democrat-Left-Green coalition has enough strength in parliament to push important matters through. It might need reinforcement, she said.
Prime Minister of Iceland Jóhanna Sigurdardóttir. Photo by Geir Ólafsson.
“It is important that the government is backed by a solid majority in parliament and we will find out whether that is the case when we start working on the extensive tasks that have to be handled in the near future,” Sigurdardóttir told Fréttabladid.
“Iceland’s cause must be upheld on foreign ground and domestically we are working on the extensive tasks that we were elected to tackle, such as changes to the fisheries control system and the EU process. It is very important to try and unite the nation and stand behind it in what needs to be done to restore Iceland,” she added.
Sigurdardóttir stated she is very concerned about what impact the rejection of the Icesave legislation will have on the wage contract negotiations. “We will have to see whether this means that the parties involved will only want to make short-term contracts.” Meetings with the representatives of the employment market will be held today or tomorrow.
“Once we have mapped out all the tasks we have to work on we have to evaluate whether we have the majority to carry them through and if not the government might have to be reevaluated; we might have to reinforce it in some way,” the PM concluded.
Click here to read the government’s statement following the outcome of Saturday’s Icesave referendum.
