Iceland review - 2007, Qupperneq 31

ICELAND REVIEW 29
interview
Eliza Reid: What are the Social Democratic Alliance’s primary
objectives in this new coalition?
Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir: Our main goal in this government is
to ensure stability in economic matters. Big f luctuations in exchange
rates and interest rates hit smaller companies and normal families.
... We also want to work towards as much harmony as possible in
environmental and energy affairs, which has been a source of much
debate.
ER: The Social Democrats are the first party to implement a policy of
gender balance in ministerial posts. As a noted proponent of feminist
rights, was that a crucial issue for you when negotiating the posts?
ISG: Absolutely. [Last year] I declared that I would not take the Social
Democrats into a government unless there was equal representation
between men and women in our ministerial team. The Social
Democrats emphasize environmental issues and equality issues because
the party has a feminist background. It must remain faithful to that
background and those values and try as much as it can to improve the
involvement of women.
ER: Instead of entering the coalition with the center-right Independence
Party, why was no left-wing coalition formed with parties with smaller
representation in which you would have been named Prime Minister?
ISG: [Forming a left-wing coalition] was not a realistic option because
there was no willingness to cooperate between the Left-Green
Movement and the Progressive Party. Practically speaking, it was all
but impossible, although we would have wanted that option. ... What
was lacking was the belief that such a cooperation would actually work
out. There is no gain for the Social Democrats to lead a coalition with
a woman as the first Prime Minister and be like the mother in the front
seat with the kids yelling and screaming in the backseat. That would
not have been a great achievement and not beneficial for the Social
Democrats or for women. You need to have full faith in [a coalition’s]
viability and I felt the present coalition was a more realistic option
under the circumstances.
ER: How do you work towards a compromise on big issues like EU
membership, the environment and whaling, where you have vast
differences between the ideologies of the Independence Party and
Social Democrats?
ISG: The problem is that some of these issues do not develop along
traditional ideological lines. Take the European matter. The Social
Democrats are the only party that has wanted to put applying for
membership on the agenda. No other party has been willing to do
that, neither from the left nor the right. So we do not have any partner
in that area.
You can say the same thing about the whaling issue. There are
differences on that issue within all parties. As for environmental
matters, it would not have been any easier to reach a compromise there
with the Progressives, who have been in favor of heavy industry and
harnessing energy, nor the Left-Green Alliance, who have been on the
other side of the spectrum. In all these cases, one would have had to
work towards a compromise.
ER: In what issues do the two parties have similar approaches?
ISG: In the economic arena. We need to achieve stability in the
economy and to make difficult decisions because we have such a large
majority behind us. In the coalition formation negotiations, we also
achieved a good emphasis on welfare issues, which was the nucleus of
our campaign in the election.
ER: In future elections, do you think that being in this grand coalition
with the Independence Party will make you less of an alternative to
them?
ISG: Of course it depends on how this collaboration goes. And what
we have to be careful about is to take care of our own profile. Although
we are in this collaboration we keep our own identity. The two parties
aren’t being merged; we’re just founding a coalition on certain issues.
ER: Is there a niche for a tiny but successful nation like Iceland on the
international stage?
ISG: I think we should be in environmental and energy affairs. ...
Seventy percent of our energy consumption is through renewable
sources. Probably no other nation in the world has as good a knowledge
of using geothermal energy.
The fact that we are so few can also be a strength. ... Our lack of
military, which some people undoubtedly consider a weakness, can
also be an asset because then we can be the proponents of peaceful
solutions to disputes. We can be of use to the international community
because we are a threat to no one.
ER: The Social Democrats campaigned on withdrawing Iceland from
the Coalition of the Willing. The current government charter says that
the government “regrets the war in Iraq and desires peace in the Middle
East.” Should that not have been more strongly worded because of your
party’s opinion before the election?
ISG: If I had been able to choose the words completely myself, I
would have put it differently, but we had to take into consideration
that we were constructing a coalition made of a leading party in the
previous government, which made a decision to be in the Coalition
of the Willing, together with a party that was on the forefront of the
opposition and fought against this from the beginning. We decided,
instead of focusing too much on the past, on this declaration that “we
regret the war in Iraq.” I think it is a big achievement. It is in our
hands to look toward the future.
Newly appointed Foreign Minister Ingibjörg Sólrún Gísladóttir knows her politics. After serving three consecutive terms as a Mayor of
Reykjavík, she became the leader of the Social Democrats. In the aftermath of the parliamentary elections earlier this summer, she helped
engineer the new governing coalition between the nation’s two most successful parties. The politico speaks about the new order, Iceland’s
role on the world stage, and her feminist roots.
The Art of Compromise
By eliza reid Photo By Páll StefánSSon