New Times,
New Thinking.

  1. Long reads
8 March 2010updated 24 Sep 2015 10:46am

Fjord Focus

The financial crash of 2008 haunts the remote tundra east of Reykjavik.

By Nicky Gardner

In a bar in Búðir, eastern Iceland, the regular afternoon crowd looks on as the supersize TV relays a litany of bad news about the country’s economy. An update on the struggling krona. Financial results from a Reykjavik bank that almost collapsed in the turmoil of 2008. More reflections on the Icesave debacle, and the rights and wrongs of the British government’s tough demands for compensation from Iceland. The drinkers react like the chorus of a Greek tragedy. In this part of Iceland, it seems, there is no good news.

Subscribe to The New Statesman today from only £8.99 per month
Content from our partners
Common Goals
Securing our national assets
A mission for a better country and economy