NEWS ANALYSIS: Thirty years after Norway opted against joining the EU for the third time, debate is rising once again over whether a new generation of voters should have a say. Most top politicians are reluctant to propose another EU referendum, afraid it would overshadow everything else and be too divisive, but have to admit that the EU membership issue just won’t go away.
Norway’s current Labour-Center government is resisting efforts to let voters express their opinions on the EU issue. Referenda are rare and only advisory in Norway, since most Norwegian politicians believe they were elected to make important decisions. Those in the Center Party remain firmly opposed to joining the EU while a majority of Labour leaders, meanwhile, have historically favoured EU membership, including those now in power. Labour thus opted in 2021 to put the issue on ice during their four-year partnership with Center, for the sake of government unity.
Their government is up for re-election next autumn, though, part of the reason why the EU debate is otherwise resurfacing. Støre’s government is historically unpopular, trailing badly in public opinion polls and looks unlikely to hang on to power. The last thing Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre wants is more divisiveness in troubled times, and his pro-EU foreign minister, Espen Barth Eide, can only respond to questions about EU membership by responding that his government’s platform is against it.
Støre recently acknowledged a need for more market integration within the EU regarding finance, energy and telecommunication, and that Norway “must closely follow developments,” but he’s made it clear he doesn’t want a new debate over actual EU membership.
“No, that’s not a theme now,” he told newspaper Klassekampen in September. “We’re in an uneasy political time right now. We need to hold on to the broad agreements on the most important security policy issues.” He said he was “open” to a debate on Norway’s relations with the EU, “but I don’t see that a membership debate is something we need today.” His government also stresses that current relations between Norway and the EU are “good and close” (external link).
His government’s non-socialist opponents in Parliament are more receptive to EU membership, which the Conservatives have officially endorsed for years. They’re also worried, though, that the EU membership issue would overshadow all others and they too have a problem with potential government coalition partners. While the non-socialist Liberals are already lobbying heavily in favour of EU membership, the much-bigger Progress Party is skeptical. That can lead to infighting at a time when the conservative side needs to show solidarity.
This week’s 30th anniversary of the last EU referendum in Norway, on November 28, 1994, though, has made it impossible to ignore the issue, as has a string of international crises. Proponents of a new EU referendum stress that the world has changed greatly since 1994, when 52.2 percent of Norwegians voted against EU membership and 47.8 percent voted in favour. Voter turnout, moreover, was nearly 89 percent.
While a majority of voters in Oslo and other nearby metropolitan areas voted “yes,” most of those in the rest of the country voted “no,” especially in the northern counties of Nordland, Troms and Finnmark. Several told state broadcaster NRK on Thursday that they’d vote “no” again now.
Northern residents still tend to be the most firmly against EU membership, often arguing that they feel far enough away from decision-makers in Oslo, much less Brussels. Most Norwegians agree, however, that it’s important to cooperate with the EU and internationally, especially on trade and defense issues. Their trade agreement with the EU (the so-called EEA/EØS pact that’s also been in place for 30 years) provides access to the EU’s inner market and has proven to be highly beneficial for Norwegian business and industry. It also, however, costs Norway billions in funding to the EU and expects Norway to accept EU directives in return, even though Norway has no vote on them.
The EEA/EØS agreement is nonetheless viewed as a solid compromise and a means of keeping Norway both in and out of the EU at the same time. Others think it’s not enough, and that Norway should still have a seat at the tables where EU directives are formed and agreed upon.
That’s why the EU membership keeps coming up, again and again, especially now. Recent crises from the pandemic (when Norway had to rely on neighbouring EU member Sweden to share its EU-purchased vaccine allotment) to Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has made cooperation and coordination with the EU more important than ever, especially on security and defense issues. Norway’s membership in NATO isn’t always viewed as enough, and when EU members Finland and Sweden quickly decided to also join NATO, pro-EU forces in Norway thought Norway should also join the EU.
“Together we’re stronger,” headlined an editorial in newspaper Dagsavisen (which has traditionally opposed EU membership) just last spring. The newspaper was hailing a new defense and security pact with the EU as “a logical extension of steadily closer cooperation on support for Ukraine” and a “sensible” step for Norway to take. There’a also concern about what will happen if there’s another pandemic, because health issues and many others remain outside Norway’s EEA/EØS pact with the EU. Being an outsider can become increasing difficult for Norway in the years ahead.
Few top politicians are more outspoken on the EU issue than Guri Melby, leader of the non-socialist Liberal Party. She’s also a former government minister in Solberg’s coalition and a Member of Parliament, and has been actively promoting EU membership after her own party changed its earlier membership view from “no” to a firm “yes.”
“There’s war in Europe at the same time central aspects of our security and preparedness are being handled by the EU where we don’t have a seat at the table,” Melby told newspaper Aftenposten in connection with the 30th anniversary of Norway’s last EU referendum. She thinks the recent election of Donald Trump as president of the US only raises the importance of the EU.
“Yet we have a prime minister (Støre) who’s really a strong supporter of the EU, but who won’t even open up for debate,” Melby told Aftenposten. She’s also unimpressed with Solberg of the Conservative Party. Its support for EU membership is part of its official program, but Solberg now seems more concerned about getting along with the more-conservative and suddenly strong Progress Party to form a new coalition government next fall, since Progress is skeptical to EU membership. Solberg, like Støre, doesn’t seem to want to rock the boat.
That bothers Melby, even though her party may also become part of a new non-socialist government next fall. “I think we need political leaders in the big parties who must once again dare to take responsibility, in order to have a proper and thorough debate and a new EU referendum,” Melby said, who proposes two referenda through which Norwegians could express their views: One on whether Norway should enter into membership negotiations with the EU and then one whether to accept the result.
The newly pro-EU Greens Party has called upon leaders like Støre and Solberg to “stop being cowardly” and deal with the EU issue, not least since the EU has made much more progress than Norway has on environmental and climate issues. Most major environmental and climate organizations now support EU membership.
The prospect of EU membership, though, remains highly sensitive. When Norwegians voted against it in 1994, the numbers were almost exactly the same as they’d been in an earlier referendum on the issue in 1972: Newspaper Klassekampen has noted how 95 percent of all municipalities in Norway ended up with the same results as they had 22 years earlier. The world had also changed dramatically then, too, from depth of the Cold War to the reunification of Europe and the post-Cold War optimism that brought. “Yet folks voted almost exactly the same,” said historian Finn Olstad at the time. “That’s an enigma.”
Today the EU, which Norwegian leaders had first decided against joining long before 1972 without a referendum, is no longer the “rich countries’ club” that opponents claimed it was in in 1972 and 1994. It still only had 12 members in 1994 compared to 27 now, and Norway itself has emerged as wealthier than most all of them because of its oil and gas industry. EU fans in Norway also stress that the EU is now based on democratic institutions that have played a major role in reducing economic differences among European countries, with newer members like Portugal and those in the former Estern Europe benefitting greatly from its sharing of resources.
Many of the old anti-EU arguments are therefore no longer valid, but EU opponents have found new ones. Klassekampen editorialized on Thursday that the debate in Norway is still between pro-market interests and those more concerned with Norwegian solidarity and culture, who still think “there is intelligent life outside the big cities.”
At the same time, some prominent Norwegians who voted “no” in 1972 and 1994 now say they would vote “yes” this time around. They include former prime minister Kjell Magne Bondevik, who led the rural-oriented Christian Democrats. He told newspaper Aftenposten this week that “an aggressive Russia, a powerful and ambitious China and a more nationalistic USA with (Donald) Trump returning as president” makes it more important than ever for Norway to join forces with its European allies. “Europe must stand on its own feet, and then the EU is important,” Bondevik said. “A unified Nordic region (in which only Norway and Iceland are now outside the EU) would also be stronger.”
Bondevik, like the leaders of the Greens and Liberal parties, also points to how the EU has also become a much stronger and more effective proponent of climate and environmental measures that can help halt climate change. Norway alone, meanwhile, continues to lag behind on climate issues. “The EU has become the ambitious player here,” Bondevik told Aftenposten, admitting he “made a mistake” in underestimating the EU’s climate commitment 30 years ago.
He and others disagree with Støre and Solberg that a new formal debate on EU membership could be too divisive. “I can understand (Støre’s and Solberg’s hesitance), but now there have been important international changes,” Bondevik said, and that’s radically changed the reasons for staying outside the EU. He’s been joined by another former Christian Democrats leader, Knut Arild Hareide, who’s also changed his earlier “no” to “yes.” Current party leaders remain opposed.
While debate over an EU debate continues, most acknowledge it’s already well underway and will play a role in next year’s national election. New books have already been published on the issue, it was the topic of nationally televised debate this week on NRK and newspapers and websites have been full of it. Some members of still-staunch “no” parties like the Socialist Left (SV) are also waffling and think the party needs to re-evaluate its anti-EU stance.
More external factors can also contribute to the debate, for example if Iceland decides to launch a new membership debate and ultimtely join, and especially if Russia becomes even more aggressive against more neighbours than Ukraine.
Norwegians under the age of 48 haven’t been able to take part in a referendum, and that may play the biggest role in whether a new one is held. A new poll conducted by Sentio Research for anti-EU newspapers Klassekampen and Nationen showed that 35 percent would vote “yes,” 47 percent would vote “no” and 18 percent were unsure and could go either way. At the same time, 47 percent of those under the age of 30 said they’d vote “yes” while just 30 percent would vote “no.” That indicates more young people are positive towards EU membership, and they’re the decision-makers of the future.
NewsinEnglish.no/Nina Berglund