Disgruntled Icelanders recently forced their prime minister to quit, and are threatening to hand power to self-styled pirates at an early election. But whereas other European voters are culling traditional parties out of weakness, Reykjavik’s are rebelling out of strength. In contrast to eurozone countries (core as well as periphery) that remain deeply constrained by excessive external debt, Iceland has just paid down its foreign obligations by a cool $61 billion, returning them to the safe 2006 level.
The country that suffered proportionally the world’s biggest financial collapse in 2008 is now set to boom again as it diversifies from fish, tourism, and aluminum into renewable energy and information technology. Its GDP, already among the highest in the world per capita, is back above the pre-crisis level and set to rise (on central bank forecasts) by 4 percent in 2016 and 2017—twice the eurozone and U.K. rates.
