Iceland has a new fisheries minister, Gunnar Bragi Sveinsson, 47, who was previously the country’s foreign minister.
He succeeds Sigurður Ingi Jóhannsson, who has become prime minister in the wake of the Panama papers scandal which forced the resignation of Sigmundur Davíð Gunnlaugsson as Iceland’s premier last week.
The coalition Icelandic government is currently in a state of political turmoil after Gunnlaugsson and his wife were implicated in the Panama tax haven row, an accusation which they both strongly deny.
Last week, tens of thousands of Icelanders, in a country where the population is only 330,000, turned out to throw bananas at the Althing, Iceland’s parliament building, suggesting that its government is little better than some Central American republics.
Sveinsson’s fishing credentials are not immediately obvious. He studied economics and sociology at the University of Iceland and he edited a regional newspaper in north-west Iceland for a couple of years in the early 1990s.
First elected to parliament in the 2009 general election, he is leader of the Icelandic Progressive Party in the north-west region.
He said his time as foreign minister had developed and changed his view on some issues, but now he was looking forward to his new post as fisheries minister, which also includes the agriculture portfolio.
While Iceland’s fishing industry is generally performing well at present, politically it has always been a hot issue, bubbling under the surface just like Iceland’s volcanoes.
The industry employs about 9,000 people, some 4,900 in catching and 4,200 in fish processing. But a further 25,000 people are working in fish related support sectors. The industry contributes almost 30 per cent to Iceland’s GDP.
2016 FISHupdate