| T.R | Title | User | Personal
Name | Date | Lines |
|---|
| 289.1 | Delicate oil? | AQUA::FOSSUM | | Fri Sep 09 1988 13:14 | 21 |
| re .0:
I don't think the delicacy of this issue has much to do with oil.
The problem for the politicians is that the opposition to joining
the Common Market cuts across most political parties, and they
are afraid they might loose votes if they took a stand before
the election. It is not an unfamiliar strategy to avoid important
issues in election campaigns. In this case, the political parties
got burnt on this last time, when most political parties were in
favor of joining, but the voters said no.
As far as I can tell, the Norwegian opposition to joining the EEC
is based on a variety of concerns. They include farm subsidies,
fishing rights, distrust of foreigners, distrust of non-Lutheran
religions, distrust of Western European capitalism/colonialism/
imperialism, fear of loosing their culture, fear of loosing their
independence. The opposition goes across the political spectrum, from
far right to far left.
Plus, everybody have such a good time debating this issue.
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| 289.2 | Another reason for doubt | OSL09::MAURITZ | Bus Cons; ph 47-2-160290; @NWO | Wed Sep 28 1988 05:19 | 28 |
| .1 has summed up the situation here quite concisely; generally the
populist sentiments tend to predominate in the opposition arguments.
However...
There is one area of genuine concern that even proponents of membership
accept as a "problem" that we must understand, before taking such
a drastic step as membership would imply: Unemployment. Sweden,
Norway and Austria have very low unemployment rates (2-3%). The
EC hovers in the 8-12% area (some countries higher). The 3 above
mentioned are still members of the old EFTA. I am not sure of Finland,
which has traditionally had a "hidden" unemployment by virtue of
a lot of their citizens living and working in Sweden (note that
we in the Nordic Union have much of the same legal and social
integration that the EC hopes to have in 1992, eg, legal & social
rights in all member countries, etc). The interesting fact with
regard to Finland is the tendency over the last 10-15 years towards
an increasing shortage of labour, and an increasing rate of
repatriation of Finns that had moved to Sweden earlier.
It would be interesting to hear some Finnish comments on what I
just wrote, as my sources on this tendency comes from superficial
Norwegian media coverage.
Regards
A doubter (agnostic) on the EC question
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| 289.3 | Here's some comments | KIPPIS::LAITINEN | Esa "Punkki" Laitinen, CO @FNO | Thu Sep 29 1988 03:48 | 13 |
| re .2
You are mostly correct in what you say about Finns and Finland in your
reply. A couple of points, though.
Finland has a falling unimployment rate, and there is shortage of
labour near Helsinki area, but on countryside, mostly in northern
and eastern parts of Finland, the unimployment rate is still quite
high (I can't give you exact figures, I don't usually memorize them,
could be around 7-10% in countryside, maybe more). And yes, we're
member of EFTA.
esa
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| 289.4 | More on European free trade | WHYVAX::SAVAGE | Neil @ Spit Brook | Mon Nov 27 1989 09:27 | 70 |
| Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Will Norway join the EC?
Date: 26 Nov 89 11:15:52 GMT
From: [email protected] (Teemu Leisti)
Organization: University of Helsinki
In article <[email protected]>, [email protected] (Teemu Leisti)
writes:
> However, there are currently negotiations between EC and EFTA (European
> Free Trade Association = Austria, Finland, Iceland, Norway, Sweden,
> Switzerland), in an advanced state, about creating an EES, European Economic
> Space, which would be a sort of loose coalition of EC and EFTA. The main
> point would be free movement of capital, goods, services, and workers among
> the EES countries.
Translated and quoted without permission from this morning's Helsingin
Sanomat (Finland's leading daily):
"
EC'S NEEDS SET THE TUNE FOR COOPERATION WITH EFTA
The ministerial meeting of EC and EFTA on December 19 will give the
green light on starting negotiations on a European Economic Space
comprising 18 nations.
EC's foreign ministers will probably decide on beginning the
negotiations on Monday. EFTA's ministers made a positive decision
already a month ago.
The basis of EES is EC's wishes and needs. EES will be built
according to the goals of the Community and mostly dictated by the
Community.
In EFTA, this is known and accepted. EFTA's main goal is to make
sure that its six member countries will be able to enjoy the benefits of
EC's market to the fullest extent.
..
EES would be governed by common bodies of EC and EFTA. These would
be the decision-making body, a body looking after the enforcement of
decisions, and an arbitrating body in case of conflicts.
Within the EES there would be an independent EC and an independent
EFTA. They would always first decide their own affairs among themselves
and only after that aim to manage their common affairs.
How all this will come about and who will in fact be in charge is
unclear, even though politicians had high-ranking civil servants start
investigating the questions last spring.
..
The relations of EC and EFTA countries are mostly based on free
trade agreements made in 1973. In that year, EFTA's founder and central
power, Britain, joined EC and pulled Ireland and Denmark in with itself.
Norway got out at the last minute, because the majority of its people
were against joining EC.
The countries left in EFTA signed free trade agreements with the
Community, by means of which quotas and customs were removed in stages from the
trade of industrial products. This goal was completely achieved in the
beginning of 1984.
..
EC's trading partners, 1988 (* 1 000 000 000 ECU):
Import Export
EFTA 90 96
USA 68 71
Japan 41 17
Developing 117 113
countries
Others 70 65
"
Teemu Leisti
U of Helsinki, Finland
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| 289.5 | How serious is the EC membership issue? | MLTVAX::SAVAGE | Neil @ Spit Brook | Tue Nov 28 1989 14:45 | 90 |
| Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Will Norway join the EC?
Date: 27 Nov 89 19:28:28 GMT
From: [email protected]
Organization: SINTEF, Trondheim, Norway.
In-reply-to: [email protected]'s message of 26 Nov 89 10:44:27
GMT
> Norwegians told me (on a recent trip there) that recent polls had
> shown that if the referendum on EC membership were taken again, over
> 70% of Norwegians would vote for membership.
I can hardly believe that. Back in '72 prior to the popular vote on EC
membership the major parties Arbeiderpartiet (AP) and Hoyre (really o/)
that accounted for some 70-75% of the Stortinget seats (correct me if
I'm way off) were both in favor of membership, with a few AP
*deviatees*. But then this _Nei_til_EEC_ movement (EEC: European
Economic Community as it was merely known then) fighted against, and as
we know the result landed on 52% NO. Maybe not a reassuring figure for
the Nei side given the changing conditions since, but... _Nei_til_EEC_
isn't dead yet, although slumbering.
My impression is that the current coalition government is likely to
follow the EFTA EES (European Economic Space) thought rather than
consider a direct apply for EC membership for as long as hope persists
with the EFTA- EC dialogue.
Norwegian commercial organisations however, with their assosiation NHO
seems to press for an EC membership line. And that is something that
the government cant disregard, given its *rightist* majority.
I would have like to comment more on this item, but my political
insight is rather scarce these days :-) I reckon someone else down in
Oslo will jump on the train....
--Harald E SINTEF, Trondheim, Norway.
From: [email protected] (Tore Larsen)
Organization: University of Tromsoe, Norway
Subject: Re: Will Norway join the EC?
I don't know that there has been any serious polls on the issue. The
"current" discussions in newspapers etc. will give you the impression
that there has been a significant movement in the population towards
pro-membership since the referendum in '72.
Now I wouldn't bet money on this being indicative of the result if we
were to have another referendum in a year or so. I believe the
"no-side" was late to dominate the field in '72 but picking up a lot of
momentum during the final fight. It's my impression this time too that
there is a lot of people opposed to the idea of membership, particulary
in the smaller communities. The positions will change however (I
believe) when Sweden joins (she probably will if she can maintain some
sort of neutrality).
However it is interesting to note that the membership issue is some
sort of an extremely hot "no-issue" in the political debate. This is
because:
1 In the '72 referendum just over 50 % of the votes went
against membership. This severely damaged the largest party
(the Labour Party) who were (and are) pro-membership. They
lost a lot of supporters primarily to the left. Putting the
issue on the agenda for a clearcut principal fight will cause
the Labour Party to loose support.
2 Currently we have a government that includes the strongest
pro-membership party (the Conservatives) and the strongest
opposers (Senterpartiet - a party with a rural tradition).
They are together on this for other reasons and understandable
apetite for political power - However a clearcut principal
fight will cause the coallition to break. This will cause
both parties to loose the government power. Senterpartiet,
however, would favor at the polls.
As a consequence the major coallition partner and the major opposition
party have a common interest in "adjusting" Norway into a
"fait-acompli" membership status without causing all the distress of a
principal discussion (such discussions can be quite intense in this
country). The most peaceful solution would be if we could ease in hand
in hand with Sweden.
Aside from this fighting on our own turf we are all facing a rapidly
changing Europe that might have enormous consequences for the patterns
of cooperation in Europe.
--Tore
|
| 289.6 | Immaterial until next election (1993) | WHYVAX::SAVAGE | Neil @ Spit Brook | Thu Nov 30 1989 14:22 | 39 |
| From: [email protected] (Heine Rasmussen)
Organization: NHH, Bergen, Norway
Newsgroups: soc.culture.nordic
Subject: Re: Will Norway join the EC?
Date: 29 Nov 89 17:48:26 GMT
The Norwegian Cabinet is presently put together with ministers from a
minority tree-party coalition - the Conservative party, the Christian
People's party and the Center party. Together they hold about 45% of
the seats in the Parliament. The Conservative party is very much in
favor of a Norwegian EC membership, while the Center party, mainly
supported by farmers (the party got somewhere around 6% of the votes in
this fall's election) is very much against it. The Cabinet solved this
controversy by declaring EC membership to be a non-matter until the
next election (1993). I don't see any possibility for a Norwegian EC
application before that.
For several reasons, Norwegian politicians (including the opposition)
is not very interested in pushing the issue. Most of the parties have
members that are for EC membership as well as members against. The
fear of internal quarrel and division, as we saw it in the 1972
campaign, where the people finally voted against membership (with a
very small margin), is still there. This is even more interesting when
we consider the Parliament seats, where a vast majority would vote for
membership if the issue was put on the agenda. The people itself is
probably in favor of membership, although the percentage of those that
has not yet made up their mind is very large. The 70% figure mentioned
must be based on a poll where the don't-knows were not taken into
consideration.
As I see it, whether they want it or not Norway will have to move
themselves so close to the EC that they in any practical sense will
behave like a member, so there is only a question of membership with or
without voting rights. A Norwegian application is coming - but not
before 1993.
- Heine
The Norwegian School of Economics, Bergen, Norway.
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