Iceland's President: Independence can never be negative

This news published by the Celtic League:

NEWS FROM THE CELTIC LEAGUE

ICELANDS PRESIDENT: INDEPENDENCE CAN NEVER BE NEGATIVE

“the small size of a nation is not an obstacle to its success”. It’s a point those who carp on about the Isle of Man being too small to be independent might wish to ponder.

We rarely simply link to an article but in this instance it is worth it (see below).

The President of Iceland Ólafur Grímsson, has said “independence in itself can never be negative”.

His words should have a special resonance for those in the Celtic countries who aspire to independence. He also choose an interesting venue for his statement speaking in Quebec at a joint press conference with the Prime Minister of the Province who is an opponent of independence which is aspired to by many French speaking Québécois.

Interestingly President Grímsson also said “the small size of a nation is not an obstacle to its success”. It’s a point those who carp on about the Isle of Man being too small to be independent might wish to ponder. No less than 16 independent States have a population at or below the population of the Isle of Man.

People on the Isle of Man might also wish to ponder on the fact that although Iceland ’s Althing (like Mann’s Tynwald) claims to be the oldest parliament that did not stop the country adopting a unicameral system in 1991 thereby modernising its democratic system (something that’s its past time that Tynwald did).

The Icelandic President said that his country was written off at birth (in 1944) by sceptics who said it would not survive. However it has, and in recent years endured and survived an economic crisis which would have tested much larger States (e.g. Greece ) today.

He said despite the problems of recent years Iceland still maintains one of the world’s best welfare systems.

Link to the article from Nationalia here:

http://www.nationalia.info/en/news/2088

J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information

25/02/15

(Please note that replies to correspondence received by the League and posted on CL News are usually scanned hard copies. Obviously every effort is made to ensure the scanning process is accurate but sometimes errors do occur.)

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