UK government seizes £4 billion of Icelandic assets in UK
In a move which has been welcomed in the UK but may well backfire in the overseas political scene it has been confirmed that the UK government has seized £4 billion of Icelandic assets held in the UK. The £4 billion figure is in excess of the £3 billion which is said to be owed to UK investors by Iceland's financial system. So what next?
While initially the Icelandic government had been very blunt in their answer to UK questions about the return of the assets, i.e. they were not guaranteed and would not be returned, this stance seems to have softened somewhat. Quite what will happen next remains to be seen and while the assets were rather bizarrely seized using anti-terror laws there is ever chance they could be used as a bargaining tool or else sold on and proceeds used to settle those in the UK who have lost out.
This threatens to blow open any economic channels which the UK had with Iceland and open the door for weeks, months and possibly years of discussion in Europe. Many are now asking whether the UK has now set a marker for the rest of the world to use in similar situations.
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