PM Brown Threatens To Sue Iceland

A diplomatic row between the UK and Iceland has erupted with PM Brown demanding the return of billions of pounds of British investments. He has threatened to seize assets and take legal action against the Icelandic government. Sky's Glen Oglaza reports.

It's 30 years since the so-called Cod Wars. The relations between London and Reykjavik are almost as frosty now as they were then, with the prime minister using the most undiplomatic of language and threatening to sue the government of Iceland.

We believe that, and I think everybody at least home will agree that the Icelandic authorities are responsible for this. We'll do what we can, working with local authorities to help. And I think we, as the government, are doing the responsible thing. We are holding the Icelandic authorities responsible with demanding that the money be paid back to the local authorities. (Through Legal action?) And we are prepared to consider all forms of action including as we did, attempting to, and freezing assets.

The problem is that it's not only Iceland's banks that have crashed. Yesterday, the British government used anti-terror laws to freeze the assets of those banks. But now, the Icelandic government is in fact defaulting. "Totally unacceptable!", says Gordon Brown, threatening legal action something Iceland's prime minister is keen to avoid.

Legal action is something that is always available. That's one way of civilizing, excuse me, it's one way of setting disputes in a civilized manner, go to courts, but I don't know we're...we're hoping and planning to try to resolve this issue in good cooperation with the UK authorities.

More than a hundred local authorities placed large sums of money on deposit with Icelandic banks. The total amount is hundreds of millions and could be as much as a billion pounds. That money is needed to revive the goods and services run by local councils. The local authority leaders say they can't guarantee those goods and services unless they get their money back.

Until we've actually looked to the implications, for each local authority, the sum is very large and it will be a small amount in the total context of the budget; others, it will be a much greater impact. We still haven't assessed that fully...

And then there are the police authorities, who also invested in Icelandic banks and now stands to lose the best part of 100 million pounds.

The government's now embroiled in a huge row with the governments of Iceland. But while ministers say they're doing what they can to help local councils retrieve those missing millions, they are also asking question what on earth you have been doing with tax payers' money. The councils reply "we invested it in banks that we thought were safe."

But safe? They were not. And Gordon Brown is making it crystal clear that he expects the government of Iceland to underwrite the debts of its banks and to pay up.

Glen Oglaza, Sky News.

參考中文翻譯：

所謂的冷戰(zhàn)到現(xiàn)在已經(jīng)30年之久的。但是現(xiàn)在倫敦和雷克雅未克之間的關(guān)系仍然像以前一樣僵，英國首相布朗使用非外交辭令，威脅會起訴冰島政府。

我相信，我認(rèn)為每個人，至少是國內(nèi)的每一個人都同意，冰島官方需要為此負(fù)責(zé)。我們會盡我們所能與當(dāng)?shù)毓俜綀F(tuán)結(jié)一致以提供幫助。我認(rèn)為，作為政府，我們所作的事情是負(fù)責(zé)任的。我們認(rèn)為冰島政府有責(zé)任將資金歸還當(dāng)?shù)卣＃〞粫ㄟ^法律途徑？）我們準(zhǔn)備考慮所有的方式，包括我們已經(jīng)采取的措施，凍結(jié)資產(chǎn)。

問題是，并不是只有冰島的銀行崩潰。昨天，英國政府利用反恐怖法凍結(jié)了那些銀行的資產(chǎn)。但是現(xiàn)在，冰島政府不付欠款。“這是完全不能接受的！”布朗首相說，威脅說會采取冰島首相極力避免的法律手段。

法律手段總是可以采取的。這是一種文明的，處理爭端的文明的方式，上法庭。但是我不知道我們……我們希望通過和英國政府的友好合作來解決這個問題。

100多家當(dāng)?shù)劂y行在冰島銀行存儲了大量現(xiàn)金，總數(shù)高達(dá)數(shù)億甚至十億元。當(dāng)?shù)匚瘑T會需要這些錢來恢復(fù)貨物和服務(wù)供給。當(dāng)?shù)卣賳T說，除非這些錢能夠被歸還，否則他們不能保證那些貨物和服務(wù)。

我們仔細(xì)考慮一下，對于每一個當(dāng)?shù)氐恼@些錢是非常大的數(shù)目，對于整個國家預(yù)算來說非常少；而對于其他人來說，將會造成很大的影響。我們沒有全面的評估……

還有警察機(jī)關(guān)，他們也對冰島銀行進(jìn)行了投資，現(xiàn)在隨時可能損失1億英鎊。

政府現(xiàn)在卷入和冰島政府的爭端。但是當(dāng)統(tǒng)治者們盡一切可能來幫助當(dāng)?shù)匚瘑T會取回即將丟失的數(shù)百萬時，他們也在問一個問題：你們到底拿著納稅人的錢做什么了？委員會的答案是“我們投資于銀行，以為是銀行是安全的。”

但是安全嗎？未必。布朗已經(jīng)讓這一點(diǎn)非常明顯了。他希望冰島政府承認(rèn)欠款并且盡快歸還。