Icelanders sign up against plan to pay off banking debt to foreign investors

Icelandic voters have called on their president to veto a parliamentary bill to pay off a 3.8 billion euro ($5.4 billion) banking debt.

About a quarter of the electorate has signed a petition asking President Olafur Ragnar Grimsson to hold a referendum on the matter.

Under the terms of the compensation plan Iceland would have to repay 3.8 billion euros, or 12,500 euros per citizen, of the money lost when the island nation's banking system collapsed.

The money would reimburse Britain and the Netherlands for the amount that savers in both countries lost when the online bank Icesave, part of the Landsbanki group, failed. Investors in both countries received partial compensation from their national governments.

President Grimsson is under pressure from parliament to approve the plan, which was approved Wednesday by a 33-30 vote. According to InDefence, the group that organized the petition, over 61,000 people had signed the petition as of Sunday asking Grimsson not to sign the legislation into law.

"I consider it to be a reasonable demand that the economic burden placed on the current and future generations of Icelanders - in the form of a state guarantee for Icesave payments to the UK and Dutch governments - be subject to a national referendum," the petition reads.