Anna Margret Bjoernsdottir never thought she would be forced to leave her once wealthy homeland, but after 18 months of economic upheaval, she has decided to join the biggest emigration wave from Iceland in more than a century.
“I just don’t see any future here. There isn’t going to be any future in this country for the next 20 years, everything is going backwards,” lamented the 46-year-old single mother, who plans to move to Norway in June.
The former real estate agent who lost her job when Iceland’s housing market disintegrated two years ago said she feared she could soon be forced out of her large house in Mosfellsbaer, about 15km from Reykjavik.
PHOTO: AFP
“I don’t want to sell it,” she said, vowing to “fight to keep” the comfortable wooden dwelling she, her daughter Olavia, their cat Isolde Tinna and their dog Candit the Bandit have called home since 2004.
Bjoernsdottir is not alone in planning to leave Iceland’s economic mess behind and seek a new future abroad. Most people in Reykjavik have someone in their area who has already packed their bags and left.
Emigration has rapidly picked up speed since the island-nation’s economy crumbled in late 2008, dragged down by the collapse of its major banks. Last year it marked the largest exodus from the country since 1887.
Last year, more than 10,600 people left the country of fewer than 320,000 inhabitants, official statistics showed, with 4,835 more people moving away than immigrating.
Foreign workers, mainly Poles, who since the beginning of the decade had been drawn to Iceland’s financial miracle, were the first to leave.
Icelanders like Bjoernsdottir have not been far behind, however, with the majority heading to the country’s still prosperous Nordic neighbors, especially Norway.
“I don’t think I can offer a good future to my daughter Olavia” in Iceland, Bjoernsdottir said.
Like many other Icelanders who have seen their worlds collapse since the financial turmoil began, Bjoernsdottir’s predicament stems from the decision, on advice from her banker, to take up a loan in foreign currency.
Repayments on her loan, in yen and Swiss francs, became insurmountable after the Icelandic krona nose-dived following the banking sector implosion.
“My loans are twice as high as they were,” she said, shaking her head in disgust. “The payments keep going higher and higher, so I have to leave, I’m forced to.”
Bjoernsdottir lost her job in real estate at the end of 2008 as the crisis hammered Iceland’s economy. Since then she has picked up temporary teaching work, but that position also disappeared in September.
Analysts expect Iceland’s beleaguered economy to stabilize this year, but GDP shrank 6.5 percent last year.
Other victims of Iceland’s financial woes have ended up with one foot in and the other out of the country.
Svanbjoern Einarsson, a 44-year-old father of three, says he is trapped in the country because of an unsellable house that he does not want to abandon.
Instead, the engineer has chosen to work for six-week stretches in Norway’s oil capital, Stavanger, on the western coast, with occasional one or two-week breaks home with his family.
“It’s very difficult. When I work I forget about it, but in the evening it’s very tough,” he said.
Long term, however, he acknowledged his future may be in Norway, not Iceland.
Like many Icelanders forced into exile, Bjoernsdottir and Einarsson blame Reykjavik for the nation’s plight.
“I’m so angry about this government,” Bjoernsdottir said.
Iceland’s first ever left-wing government came to power last year after the previous right-wing administration collapsed following a wave of protests blaming it for the state of the economy.
However, the current government is now under fire over a deal to pay out massive compensation to Britain and the Netherlands for costs incurred following the fall of the online bank Icesave in October 2008.
Iceland has agreed to pay out 3.9 billion euros (US$5.3 billion) to compensate for money the two countries paid out to 340,000 of their citizens hit by the bank’s collapse.
“I had great hopes when the left-wing government was elected, that they would do something against corruption and the abusive loans, but all they do is talk about Icesave,” Einarsson said.
In a March 6 referendum, more than 93 percent of Icelandic voters rejected a deal to repay Britain and the Netherlands at a high interest rate. Reykjavik has since said it will try to secure a more favorable agreement.
Bjoernsdottir was among those who voted down the deal and says the debacle strengthened her determination to leave Iceland.
“I don’t want my daughter to have to pay for this,” she said. “I just have such a bad feeling about what’s happening here.”
CHIP WAR: The new restrictions are expected to cut off China’s access to Taiwan’s technologies, materials and equipment essential to building AI semiconductors Taiwan has blacklisted Huawei Technologies Co (華為) and Semiconductor Manufacturing International Corp (SMIC, 中芯), dealing another major blow to the two companies spearheading China’s efforts to develop cutting-edge artificial intelligence (AI) chip technologies. The Ministry of Economic Affairs’ International Trade Administration has included Huawei, SMIC and several of their subsidiaries in an update of its so-called strategic high-tech commodities entity list, the latest version on its Web site showed on Saturday. It did not publicly announce the change. Other entities on the list include organizations such as the Taliban and al-Qaeda, as well as companies in China, Iran and elsewhere. Local companies need
LONG FLIGHT: The jets would be flown by US pilots, with Taiwanese copilots in the two-seat F-16D variant to help familiarize them with the aircraft, the source said The US is expected to fly 10 Lockheed Martin F-16C/D Block 70/72 jets to Taiwan over the coming months to fulfill a long-awaited order of 66 aircraft, a defense official said yesterday. Word that the first batch of the jets would be delivered soon was welcome news to Taiwan, which has become concerned about delays in the delivery of US arms amid rising military tensions with China. Speaking on condition of anonymity, the official said the initial tranche of the nation’s F-16s are rolling off assembly lines in the US and would be flown under their own power to Taiwan by way
CRITICISM: It is generally accepted that the Straits Forum is a CCP ‘united front’ platform, and anyone attending should maintain Taiwan’s dignity, the council said The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) yesterday said it deeply regrets that former president Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九) echoed the Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) “one China” principle and “united front” tactics by telling the Straits Forum that Taiwanese yearn for both sides of the Taiwan Strait to move toward “peace” and “integration.” The 17th annual Straits Forum yesterday opened in Xiamen, China, and while the Chinese Nationalist Party’s (KMT) local government heads were absent for the first time in 17 years, Ma attended the forum as “former KMT chairperson” and met with Chinese People’s Political Consultative Conference Chairman Wang Huning (王滬寧). Wang
CROSS-STRAIT: The MAC said it barred the Chinese officials from attending an event, because they failed to provide guarantees that Taiwan would be treated with respect The Mainland Affairs Council (MAC) on Friday night defended its decision to bar Chinese officials and tourism representatives from attending a tourism event in Taipei next month, citing the unsafe conditions for Taiwanese in China. The Taipei International Summer Travel Expo, organized by the Taiwan Tourism Exchange Association, is to run from July 18 to 21. China’s Taiwan Affairs Office spokeswoman Zhu Fenglian (朱鳳蓮) on Friday said that representatives from China’s travel industry were excluded from the expo. The Democratic Progressive Party government is obstructing cross-strait tourism exchange in a vain attempt to ignore the mainstream support for peaceful development
RSS