It sounds like the best of both worlds: Norway sells fresh and frozen salmon worth billions of US dollars to the EU almost tariff-free, while curbing EU food imports to protect local farmers.
The fish and agriculture deals are among those that Norway, which twice rejected EU membership in referendums in 1972 and 1994, has negotiated with the EU in order to access the bloc’s 500 million consumers.
It is an arrangement many eurosceptics say is an inspiration for Britain if it leaves the EU after a June 23 referendum. Both nations have their own currency. Norway, unlike Britain, has joined the passport-free Schengen area facilitating worker and traveler mobility.
Illustration: Yusha
Yet many Norwegians say the compromise, under which Norway has stayed outside EU fish and agriculture policies and subsidies, for example farmers to keep dairy cows in heated barns in the Arctic, is not as good as it looks.
Norway’s 5.2 million people pay hundreds of millions of euros to the EU to take part in its internal market, and have 5,000 laws based on EU directives. Norway has a theoretical right to veto directives, but has never once said “No,” fearing it would jeopardize the whole relationship, officials said.
And the Oslo government has no real say in the bloc’s governance.
“The Norwegian model is integration without representation,” Norwegian Institute of International Affairs director Ulf Sverdrup said.
Sverdrup oversaw a 900 page official review of two decades of ties to the EU in 2012 that likened the relationship to a “download democracy” of instructions sent by e-mail from Brussels.
As Britain debates the extent of its future in Europe, Norway’s situation is emblematic of the irreversible integration of Europe, despite the continent’s faltering efforts to become a true political bloc.
Norway has to accept EU rules to ensure its businesses have equal conditions for competition with EU peers. That counts in areas from international postal services to telecoms. It is important, because 80 percent of Norway’s exports go to the EU.
“You go to the office and find that Microsoft has upgraded your computer overnight without you knowing. Do you accept or not?” Sverdrup said, adding that most people unthinkingly press “Yes,” just as, he said, many Norwegians feel forced to accept EU directives.
Whether or not the nation should have full EU membership has been one of the most dominant and divisive issues in modern Norwegian political debate.
The Conservative Party, led by Norwegian Prime Minister Erna Solberg, would have liked Norway to have full membership.
“Norway would have been better off inside the EU,” she said, adding that it would give Oslo a voice in shaping continent-wide policies.
Yet many believe Norway, which has grown rich thanks to oil and gas before the recent price fall, is better off outside the EU. The Oslo government has built a vast US$835 billion sovereign wealth fund, the world’s largest. It holds about US$160,000 for each of Norway’s 5.2 million people.
“It would be a great inspiration if Britain leaves,” said Kathrine Kleveland, head of Norway’s No to the EU group.
Still, the issue is on the back burner for now because of the two “No” votes. And no poll since 2005 has shown a majority in favor of EU membership.
Beyond the debate, the Scandinavian nations has made big gains from access to the EU market as a member of the European Economic Area (EEA) since 1992 — with fellow outsiders Iceland and Liechtenstein. In addition to the bulk of Norway’s exports going to the EU, 60 percent of the country’s imports come from the EU.
The 31-nation EEA, comprising the three outsiders and 28 EU states, aims to ensure freedom of movement for goods, capital, people and services. The three small non-members are consulted on rule-making, but lack a vote when decisions are taken.
“Norwegian industry and business would have struggled without the EEA,” Norwegian Minister of EEA and EU Affairs Elisabeth Aspaker said.
Still, she said there is a “democratic deficit” because Oslo has no say in making laws that ultimately affect the country.
Norway was best of all EEA nations in implementing EU directives into law, with a perfect score of zero delays in an official EEA scorecard last year. On average, EU nations lagged in implementing 0.7 percent of directives, with Italy worst at 1.6 percent.
Solberg and Aspaker’s Norwegian Conservatives, who supported membership in 1972 and 1994, bemoan a lack of say over EU policymaking even in areas such as oil and gas, where Norway is the No. 2 energy exporter to the EU after Russia.
The Conservatives are now resigned to the EEA as a compromise for a NATO member where voters rejected EU membership, fearing loss of sovereignty. Asked if Norway should pull out of the EEA, 61 percent said “No” in a poll in January, with 23 percent saying “Yes.”
The size of payments to the EU in both Norway and Britain, and how to gauge benefits and costs, is hotly debated. Both nations have a long and independent, sea-faring and trading history, but now have to weigh that against the benefits of belonging to a bloc given the nature of world trade.
The Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Norway’s main annual contributions are 388 million euros (US$437.19 million) for core EEA access from 2014 to 2021, and 472 million euros, mainly to take part in EU programs for scientific research and innovation.
Taken together, that gives a total of 860 million euros, or about 165 euros for each Norwegian every year. Norway also pays some smaller amounts, for instance to take part in Schengen.
By contrast, a British parliamentary report in January estimated that Britain paid a net ￡8.5 billion (US$12.30 billion) to the EU last year — about 170 euros each for a population of 64.6 million. It forecast the amount would fluctuate between ￡11.1 billion and ￡7.9 billion until 2020.
Many campaigners for Britain to leave the EU say they would be able to avoid the drawbacks of the “Norway option.”
Britain’s Vote Leave campaign says Britain would negotiate a free-trade deal with the EU, but, unlike Norway, “we [will] end the supremacy of EU law. We regain control.”
Campaigners say Britain’s far larger economy would have far more clout.
By contrast, British Prime Minister David Cameron, who wants Britain to stay in the EU, has explicitly said Norway pays too much and lacks influence.
The world’s largest producer of farmed salmon, Norway exported fish worth US$4.12 billion to the EU last year.
According to a deal with the EU, Norway pays a 2 percent duty to sell fresh and frozen salmon to the bloc. Oslo pays a higher price, of 13 percent, on smoked and other processed salmon.
Norway has found a way to circumvent this higher tax on processed fish. Many Norwegian firms have bought processing plants in the EU, mainly in Poland, to smoke salmon.
Aspaker said Norway has created 12,000 jobs in the EU, mainly to process the fish.
At the same time, as Norway is not tied by the EU farms and fisheries regimes, Oslo is allowed to protect its farmers.
Norway’s farmers received 58 percent of their income from government subsidies in 2014, the highest of any rich nation, according to the Paris-based OECD.
Norwegian farmers are protected by import barriers and by government guarantees of minimum prices for their food. Norwegian consumers help to pay for farmers’ steep production costs both through taxes and by paying high prices in shops for everything from beef and lamb to potatoes and carrots.
Many Norwegians dislike the high prices and visit neighboring EU member Sweden, where their weekly shop is cheaper.
Gunn Nilsen is the manager of Fromagerie, a shop in Oslo selling foreign cheeses, including Camembert from France, Stilton from Britain and Gouda from the Netherlands. Import tariffs start at 27 kroner per kilogram, which makes her cheeses a luxury.
“The Norwegian system makes no sense,” she said.
Jan. 1 marks a decade since China repealed its one-child policy. Just 10 days before, Peng Peiyun (彭珮雲), who long oversaw the often-brutal enforcement of China’s family-planning rules, died at the age of 96, having never been held accountable for her actions. Obituaries praised Peng for being “reform-minded,” even though, in practice, she only perpetuated an utterly inhumane policy, whose consequences have barely begun to materialize. It was Vice Premier Chen Muhua (陳慕華) who first proposed the one-child policy in 1979, with the endorsement of China’s then-top leaders, Chen Yun (陳雲) and Deng Xiaoping (鄧小平), as a means of avoiding the
As the Chinese People’s Liberation Army (PLA) races toward its 2027 modernization goals, most analysts fixate on ship counts, missile ranges and artificial intelligence. Those metrics matter — but they obscure a deeper vulnerability. The true future of the PLA, and by extension Taiwan’s security, might hinge less on hardware than on whether the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) can preserve ideological loyalty inside its own armed forces. Iran’s 1979 revolution demonstrated how even a technologically advanced military can collapse when the social environment surrounding it shifts. That lesson has renewed relevance as fresh unrest shakes Iran today — and it should
The last foreign delegation Nicolas Maduro met before he went to bed Friday night (January 2) was led by China’s top Latin America diplomat. “I had a pleasant meeting with Qiu Xiaoqi (邱小琪), Special Envoy of President Xi Jinping (習近平),” Venezuela’s soon-to-be ex-president tweeted on Telegram, “and we reaffirmed our commitment to the strategic relationship that is progressing and strengthening in various areas for building a multipolar world of development and peace.” Judging by how minutely the Central Intelligence Agency was monitoring Maduro’s every move on Friday, President Trump himself was certainly aware of Maduro’s felicitations to his Chinese guest. Just
In the US’ National Security Strategy (NSS) report released last month, US President Donald Trump offered his interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine. The “Trump Corollary,” presented on page 15, is a distinctly aggressive rebranding of the more than 200-year-old foreign policy position. Beyond reasserting the sovereignty of the western hemisphere against foreign intervention, the document centers on energy and strategic assets, and attempts to redraw the map of the geopolitical landscape more broadly. It is clear that Trump no longer sees the western hemisphere as a peaceful backyard, but rather as the frontier of a new Cold War. In particular,
RSS