Reykjavik blamed for economic meltdown

Leading with the front-page headline "The banks are to blame," Icelandic daily Morgunbladidcomments on the long-awaited 2,300-page "Truth Report" on Iceland's economic meltdown, which occurred in the midst of a global financial crisis in October 2008. The report, which was presented to the Icelandic parliament on Monday 12 April, is harshly critical of the excessively rapid and disproportionate growth of Iceland's largest banks — Kaupthing, Landsbanki and Glitnir — and the behaviour of their powerful majority shareholders. Former prime minister, conservative Geir Haarde, and senior government figures of the period, including the former minister for finance, former minister of banking, and the former head of the country's central bank, are also taken to task for the "extreme negligence," which characterised their failure to respond to the macro-economic imbalances which led to the collapse of the banking system.