Repayment of money spent by the Dutch and the British governments to rescue savers caught out by the Icelandic banking collapse is a "bilateral" matter between the countries concerned, dpa cited the European commissioner for enlargement as saying today. Stefan Fuele was defending the European Commission's decision to give a positive opinion on the start of EU-Iceland accession talks before the issue is resolved. "While the commission is following closely talks between Iceland on one side and (Britain) and the Netherlands on the other side, it is of the opinion that this is a bilateral issue that has no implication on the opinion," he said. Iceland rejected Monday a Dutch and British a new proposal to repay 5.4 billion dollars lost by investors when Icesave bank, an arm of the Landsbanki lender collapsed in the autumn of 2008. A last minute deal would stave off a March 6 referendum on a previous version of the compensation plan, which according to opinion polls is set to be rejected by a majority of voters.
