Iceland’s Parliament is heading for its summer recess after agreement was belatedly reached to conclude an unusually long Parliamentary session – prolonged by the extended debate over the government’s fisheries levy bill.
The Speaker of the Parliament invoked a procedural rule that limits discussion time, curtailing one of the longest debates in Parliament – with minority opposition parties accused of record-breaking filibustering to prevent the bill reaching a vote and being passed.
The procedural rule to curtail debate – referred to as the ‘nuclear option’ – has not been invoked since 1959. The debate around the fisheries levy bill has had a record total speaking time of 160 hours with 3300 speeches made, mainly by opposition members of Parliament.
The bill is now sent to the Industrial Affairs Committee, before it will be debated for a third time in Parliament.
The media has buzzed with hard words on both sides, as opposition parties have been accused of staging a power grab by speaking endlessly in Parliament to obstruct the bill’s progress, while the conservative end of Iceland’s media and fishing operators’ federation SFS have protested furiously at what they claim to be a move to prevent the bill being exhaustively discussed.
Speaking in Parliament, Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir commented that significant alterations have been made to the bill to accommodate smaller and medium-sized companies, and expressed satisfaction that Parliament had finally been able to vote on an issue on which there is agreement within the government.
