Norway and EU

[Emperor Harkonnen]

You might not be norwegian but how do you feel about the subject: should Norway join the EU?

I think yes, even though we might not benefit from it in the early years of our membership.

[Edric O]

Well, I don't really know much about Norway's economy, so all I can do is give you my best guess. And I guess that Norway definitely should join the EU, because the whole reason the EU was formed was to bring Europe together and ensure lasting peace and prosperity for all the nations on this continent. United we stand, divided we fall.

[Dunenewt]

Nooooooo. Stay out. You'll lose your right to the North Sea Oil, the right to fish in most of your waters, a lot of your sovreignty and a helluva lot of money.

[Edric O]

Don't listen to the Brits! They're just desperate to have another EU-hating European nation to keep them company. ;D

But seriously, panic-mongering is silly.

[Caid Ivik]

I would say EU has a perfect benefit due to its opened borders - political as well as economical. Only thing were I would remain suspicious is euro. Practically it is good when you go i.e.to holiday in Italy and you don't need to change crowns for liras. But economy is always stronger with minimal centralisation, so different currency regions should remain. Same for taxes and production regulations, these should be as members' internal business.

[Anathema]

There's no such thing as losing "part of your sovereignity", sovereignity is undevidable. Joining the EU only means giving the EU authority on certain matters, wich is a concession you just will have to make to gain acces to the many advantages of being a member state.

As for the fishing policies, strange how the UK doesn't even bother to abide by it and still sees reason to complain ::)

[Dunenewt]

Yes, do obey it. We're forced to.

Bring back the Cod War.

[Egeides]

Caid, about the euro... If I ain't wrong, it's backed 15% by gold so it also has its advantages in term of stability in any economic downturn. Still, I agree that it's not always a good thing to see money centralized.

On a more general note, I would mention that free trade (without more protetions for weaker economies) seems profitable when countries are of about the same economical strength. The stronger ones already have more markets, more infrastructures, more whattever what, which makes it easier for them when there's a clash with other corporations. I know that NAFTA, which is USA-Canada-Mexico seems only as a piece of crap since guess who has the more chances to take over the other's markets?... USA has something like 97% of its economy controlled by Americans and the markets are stuffed compared to other countries.

What is not mentioned enough is that USA, Japan and United Kingdom, the three economic champion, have one caracteristic in common about why their economies went BOOM at first: they were protectionist towards the stronger economies, and started being less protectionist only gradually while their economies grew and got able to face the competition. Of course, once they are the biggest, they hardly say to others to be protectionist since it would block them.

[Caid Ivik]

I support euro, but we must remain outside of it. In fact, we prosper from such state. Slovak crown raised from 1/50 of 1 USD worth to 1/30.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

will we loose the oil if we join the eu? will we loose our status as the country with the highest standard of living. we can't let that happen.

btw. when it comes to fishing it will only be good for Norway because then we can sell fish cheaper in other countries.

[Edric O]

LOL, Caid, by your "de-centralization" logic we should have a different currency in every little town and tiny village. ::)

There is not a single reason why it would be economically beneficial to have several different currencies. In reality, it's quite the contrary: the fewer currencies we have, the better. If we have just a single type of money, we save time and resources that would otherwise be wasted in changing Franks into Marks, Crowns into Liras, etc. It's simply more efficient if we all just use the same standard.

[Caid Ivik]

Once there will be no currencies needed in fully globalised and internetised economy. But why should we destroy a source of wealth (and taxes too) before it is inevitable? Not saying this would measure our worthiness as a proud EU member. It will be like production race, with swiss or greek model at the end. Or there's a more stabile, but boring way inside euro-zone, also not very popular between taxpayers, which must repair state's debts...when we could repair them from other currencies.

[Dunenewt]

will we loose the oil if we join the eu? will we loose our status as the country with the highest standard of living.

yes and yes

btw. when it comes to fishing it will only be good for Norway because then we can sell fish cheaper in other countries.

You will lose the right to fish in your own waters

[Edric O]

Do you mind showing us something to back up your propaganda, Newt?

[Dunenewt]

Britain's history maybe.

[Dante]

Personally I don't see that it matters. Either our own incompetant government mismanages our country or some other bureaucratic organisation mismanages our country. The Euro may or may not make things better for us. As for fishing... well nobody listens to me so why bother?

Blame democracy! If there was no democracy we wouldn't have this problem!

:)

[Cyborg]

There are many pros and cons with joining the EU.

If we join the EU, we must let other countries take advantage of our resources. This means that a group of Slovaks(just as an example) could come to Norway, take resources, and sell it. That is less beneficial than if Norwegians did it.

As a practical example of this, let's use the North Sea(which has already been used as an example before in this thread).

Many countries really want to fish the fish in our sea, and drill the oil.

For each oil platform in the North Sea not owned by Norway, we lose much money. Thus it's not very economically smart to join the EU.

Also, Norway is a country which would get very little political power in EU. We only have 4,5 million inhabitants, and our opinons wouldn't matter very much, and thus we would have to just accept many things we don't like.

What I find very interesting with the EU is the Euro. I would like to see that implemented in Norway.

[Edric O]

Sharing resources goes both ways, Cyborg. A group of Slovaks could come to Norway and harvest your resources, but a group of Norwegians could also go to Slovakia and harvest their resources. Ultimately, the purpose of the EU is to abolish all these silly distinctions between "us" and "them". No one has anything to win from a divided Europe. Rather than cutting up the continent into tiny little pieces, we should work together and put our resources in common, so that all of us may benefit.

From each, according to his means; to each, according to his needs. ;)

[Cyborg]

Actually, there is not very much we need in your country that we're not already importing.

We deal in high prices here in Norway, so a low price firm drilling oil and paying its workers minimum wage would outconquer the Norwegian drilling companies.

[Edric O]

Well, that is a problem... competition between workers is bad for everyone involved, since it causes all their wages to go down. The only ones who profit are the multinational corporations, who love to exploit cheap labour.

But putting up walls (a.k.a. national borders) between workers of different countries is not a solution. Even if you're not in the EU, foreign workers can still immigrate, and all wages in Norway will still go down. The only real solution is to make sure that foreign workers ask for the same wages as local Norwegian workers, so that companies can't just hire foreigners and pay them minimum wage (because all those foreigners refuse to work for such a low wage).

So how do you achieve this? By having strong unions that bring the local workers and the foreigners together. If you have a powerful and open-minded union movement which welcomes foreigners, then you don't have to worry about cheap labour pouring into your country. If you don't have that union movement, you should build it before joining the EU.

[Cyborg]

Of course there's a lot of foreign workers drilling oil.

But not foreign companies. Those foreign companies are the ones that pay their workers such a low wage.

[Emperor Harkonnen]

well so what if we can go and steal resources from other countires in the eu, we don't benefit from it. because norway would be the only rawmaterial exporter in the eu, and the other countries doesn't have any resources, only industry. that is perhaps why I have just changed my mind. I don't want norway in the EU.

The prices in norway are the second highest in the world after japan, which means noone would move their factories to norway. and since the electricity prices are increasing that would make it even worse. before we had very low prices on energy, but they have increased :(

[Cybopache]

I´m norwegian,but living in EU(Denmark) ;D,I love it down here 8).You should also remember that Norway has a lot of farmers,a lot,even theres a few droppin out,and together with the fisher man they have stopped Norway twice from joining and if they do it again after the wote in 2005,I don`t think EU wants Norway in.By the way even if were not in,there are many deals made just as we were in!! How does the christian gouverment in Norway deal with the alcohol politic in EU???

Then they have to make a deal like the Swedish done.In Norway and Sweden alcohol as in spiritus,strong beer and wine can only be bought in special shops!!! :O

Cybo

[Emperor Harkonnen]

lol, the christian government is not gonna like that. ;D I hope that we get the alchohol politic which is in EU, I hate KRF(christian political party in Norway, which is in the government) In norway we probably have the highest alchohol prices in the entire world.