Meeting Details
Audio recordings and presentation
Here are two audio files which are the recordings of each speaker. They are live recordings in situ.
Download Iceland Strikes Back - Thorvaldur Gylfason
Download Iceland Strikes Back - Sigrun Davidsdottir
Download Iceland Strikes Back - Questions and Answers
The 'Question and Answer' session was recorded in the venue and is 1 hour 10 minutes in duration.
Professor Thorvaldur Gylfason used notes for this meeting. However, much of the material is covered in his presentation at a conference on "Women and Constitutional Futures: gender equality matters in a new Scotland", on February 14/15, 2013, at the Royal Society of Edinburgh. A copy of that presentation can be downloaded here.
Meeting Background
ICELAND STRIKES BACK
Feb 13th 2013 6-8pm
Venue Edinburgh University, Old College, Lecture Theatre 183
In March 2012 a packed Nordic Horizons meeting heard a fascinating talk from Icelandic Economist Professor Thorvaldur Gylfason – the most voted-for member of the Icelandic Constitutional Council which drafted the country’s new “crowd-sourced” constitution. Since then Icelanders have been to the polls in a six question referendum to approve it and Iceland has clawed its way back to BBB+ credit rating and a projected 2.3% growth rate after opting to let “bad banks” go to the wall (in contrast to the UK and Ireland.) They’ve also paid back Scottish councils and investors.
It seems this Nordic nation of 300,000+ people is making (yet another) comeback. So will they join the EU – or continue alone? Has the People’s Constitution passed its final political hurdle? Is bank regulation now tight enough to ensure crisis can never undermine the whole country again? And what prompted Icelandic President Olafur Grimsson to end 2012 with a BBC interview backing the prospect of Scottish independence?
Prof Thor joined us for an Icelandic update together with Sigrun Davidsdottir - a London-based journalist working for the Icelandic State Broadcaster Rúv whose blog Icelog explores the financial “adventures” of her home. She’s also published her second novel - Samhengi hlutanna, a financial thriller that takes place in London and Iceland.
