Reykjavík Grapevine - 17.07.2015, Side 6

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The Reykjavík Grapevine
Issue 1 — 20116 The Reykjavík GrapevineIssue 10 — 2015
Politics | What happened?
Some of these include the Minister for
Foreign Affairs seemingly single-hand-
edly withdrawing Iceland’s EU applica-
tion, the previous government’s master
plan for nature conservation and energy
use being circumvented to make new
areas dammable, and emergency legis-
lation being passed to ban nurses from
striking (shortly before the centennial
anniversary of women’s suffrage).
The past year has also seen the gov-
ernment’s support plummet, with the
most recent polls showing the Indepen-
dence and Progressive Parties measur-
ing at 23.8% and 10.6% respectively.
Meanwhile, the Pirate Party, which has
been a very vocal opposition party, has
seen a massive rise in popularity, mea-
suring in at 33.2%, 1.2% lower than the
two government parties combined.
The public has also shown its disap-
proval in action this past year, with the
“Jæja” movement attracting thousands
of people to protest by Alþingi in No-
vember, urging the government to show
humility and respect for the pillars of
democracy. Subsequent protests went
further in their demands, calling for the
government’s resignation.
Indeed, a lot has gone on over the
past year. In an attempt to make some
sense of it all, we reached out to Birgitta
Jónsdóttir, the Pirate Party’s captain,
and Vigdís Hauksdóttir, chair of Par-
liament’s Budget Committee and one
of the Progressive Party’s best-known
MPs. Both are in their sixth year of Par-
liament, and although their accounts of
this past session are very different, they
agree that it has not been a good year.
Hi Vigdís. What is your perception
of the parliamentary year that’s
coming to a close?
The ruling parties were very optimistic
at the start of the year, as we didn’t ex-
pect parliament to get stuck in partisan
warfare and become completely dys-
functional—which it did. My feeling is
that the former government parties, the
Left-Greens and Social Democrats, are
still sore about their poor results in the
last elections, and that they’ve resorted
to playing a political game that revolves
around delaying everything for as long as
possible.
Instead of actually talking about the
proposals presented before parliament,
where the coalition government has a
majority rule, they’ve abused all the par-
liamentary programmes to put things off.
They’ve been asking for many of the big
matters to be delayed until the next ses-
sion, which I don’t get the point of, except
for them to be able to filibuster them once
again.
You don’t feel like parliament has
passed much legislation?
No, not at all. When the opposition has
spent multiple days talking about the
parliamentary president’s order of busi-
ness, like it has, you’ve gone from their
filibustering to their rants.
What were the big topics this past
parliamentary session?
I think one of the biggest issues was the
2015 budget, which got a lot of attention
in the budget committee. We managed
to balance the budget, and the legislation
passed through parliament well before
Christmas. Parliament has also worked
together across party lines to phase out
the capital controls, and I’m proud to say
we’ve got two bills to that effect ready to
be brought to the floor.
The other big issue has been one that
the budget committee tackled regarding
public spending. It started with the pre-
vious government, three or four years
ago, and now we’re working on it. We’ve
looked to Sweden’s governance for ex-
amples of how to make public companies
more efficient. The last legislation passed
on the matter is twenty years old, and is
in dire need of an update. The main goal
of the proposed legislation is to make
the public sector more disciplined. We
enjoyed a good dialogue with the opposi-
tion members of the committee, but then
in June they all bailed out. It’s a big disap-
pointment, to see politics get in the way
of such an important matter.
There was also another big event
that happened during this govern-
ment’s reign, and that is the Jæja
protests.
What were they?
The November protests. What are
your thoughts on them?
I don’t really know what people were
protesting, it seemed like a mixed bunch.
I looked at them from parliament and
tried to find something they were united
on, from their signs and such, but I didn’t
see anything. Having said that, I have
nothing against people using their legally
guaranteed right of protesting.
Now that we are at the end of this
parliamentary session, what do
you think of it?
I would have liked to see more matters of
national interest get passed. It’s a shame
to see how long it’s taken the 2013 bud-
get to get settled. It was brought out of
the committee in April, and parliamen-
tary procedures clearly state that such
matters need to be approved in a timely
fashion. It’s late by several months, and
instead of going to the floor, it’s been held
hostage by stalling tactics. It goes to show
how even procedure and laws on filibus-
tering aren’t respected by the opposition.
What effect does such a delay
have?
None in particular, except that MPs are
breaking their own laws. It also delays
the whole administrative process. What I
want to state is that this is without princi-
ple, to not let matters through that are le-
gally time sensitive. I don’t want to criti-
cise filibustering, but it can’t ever be done
without the right principles behind it.
Hi Birgitta. What is your percep-
tion of the parliamentary year
that’s coming to a close?
I would say it was complete chaos, with
battles on every front. Everything was
incredibly poorly organised, a lot of big
matters arrived late from the govern-
ment—we are far behind our schedule
because Finance Minister Bjarni Bene-
diktsson brought his capital control pro-
posals forward so late in the year.
When the year started, I was very
positive, but then Vigdís Hauksdóttir,
Þorsteinn Sæmundsson or Jón Gunnars-
son came in and started winding every-
one up, and it just makes you feel mad.
People came in refreshed and ready to
work together, but then it just turned into
one heated argument after another.
What were the big topics this past
parliamentary session?
There were three big topics. The first
had to do with the State’s fight with job
market and banning of strikes, which
were rushed through parliament. The
second was the legal amendments to the
master plan, which was a very peculiar
way to go passing such controversial
laws—the government should rather
have been done through legislation. And
the third had to do with the Minister of
Foreign Affairs sending a letter to the EU
to withdraw our application to the union,
circumventing parliament after his pre-
vious proposal to do just that had failed.
More important than any of these in-
dividual topics—although I would have
liked to oppose each of them myself—is
how they’re an affront to the principles of
parliament and democracy.
It’s bizarre to look at the govern-
ment’s agenda. It includes a lot of topics
that the government parties can’t agree
on between themselves, such as the pro-
posed Nature Pass or solutions for the
housing market. We need to come up
with some long-term solutions for these
matters that everyone can agree on.
On a more positive note, a cross-
partisan committee has been working
on improving laws regarding foreigners,
and being a part of the committee has
been incredibly rewarding. We currently
have very flawed legislation, and with
the help of specialists we’ve been coming
up with a better framework. I wish we
could work together on more important
matters like this.
You’ve been a very vocal in saying
that the parliamentary system
is broken. What do you mean by
that?
I’m very frustrated with how these bro-
ken systems get in the way of progress,
whether it is in parliament with its pro-
cedures, or the systems governing the
establishment. The constitution is com-
pletely obsolete and isn’t in accordance
with the informal social contract that we
as a nation live by.
I own a Macintosh SE, which is an an-
cient machine. It still runs, but I can’t just
put the newest Mac OS onto it and expect
it to work. It’s the same with our govern-
ing systems; we need to develop new sys-
tems that work together.
In my six years working in parlia-
ment, I haven’t seen any real change. I’ve
hated seeing people dig into their trench-
es, acting terribly, and being disorgan-
ised. Even when I started in 2009, when
we were facing an impossible position,
people took to arguing instead of sitting
down together and trying to face what
was in front of us.
So when the opposition stalls and
starts using filibustering tactics, people
should come together and find a compro-
mise; it’s the only viable solution.
Now that we are at the end of this
parliamentary session, what do
you think of it?
I think everyone is looking forward to
not seeing each other’s face for a while
[laughs].
After a long and tumultuous year, Iceland’s parliament,
Alþingi, has finished its last session and its members are
now in summer recess. Despite possessing a clear major-
ity, the governing Independence Party/Progressive Party
coalition has had a hard time passing their propositions.
This hasn’t stopped them from being at the centre of con-
troversy on numerous occasions.
Words by Gabríel Benjamin
Photos by Art Bicnick
A Year In Alþingi:
Two MPs Reflect
Pirate Birgitta Jónsdóttir and
Progressive Vigdís Hauksdóttir
share little in common,
save for their belief that it hasn't been
the best year in Parliament