‘No’ brings joy to Norway’s anti-EU camp

By Teresa Küchler

Date: 16/06/05

The rejection by French and Dutch voters of the EU constitution has set back hopes of reviving Norway's prospects of Union membership.

Disappointed pro-Europe politicians in Norway are trying to keep up appearances. Their minds were set on a new referendum and a 'Yes' to EU membership during the next four years. But as candidate states in the East such as Romania, Bulgaria and Turkey, shiver with insecurity over post-referenda decisions on future EU enlargement, Norway seems to be turning its back on the Union - again.

"To raise the question of Norwegian membership of the EU now would be very foolish," the Norwegian Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik told reporters shortly after the referenda in the two founding member states.

Opinion polls carried out on the evening of the Dutch 'Nee', by the daily newspaper Aftenposten and NRK, the public service broadcaster, showed that the 'No'-side in Norway had risen to 59% from 42% since the last poll in April.

Ironically, the sharp fall in pro-EU voices follows a period in which Norway became more positive towards EU membership after the last referendum in 1994. Earlier this year, Bondevik emerged from his so-called "thinking box" - a Norwegian expression for a period of silently pondering and making up one's mind - and declared himself "a 120% EU-positive" man. He announced that Norway should indulge in intense debates on the EU during the spring and expressed hopes for a new referendum within a year or two.

"I am more open-minded now. The EU and Europe has changed since we last voted in 1994. It has gone from being a Western European rich men's club to an all-European society," he said, making a sharp U-turn from his Christian Democrat Party's official stance.

Recent polls made by the anti-EU organisation Nei til EU showed that some 60% of the members in the Storting, the Norwegian parliament, support EU membership. So why do so many citizens disagree?

Norwegians are traditionally very zealous of their hard-won sovereignty. Earlier this month, the country celebrated 100 years of independence from Sweden with pomp and circumstance. Norway's long path to independence was a strong argument in two previous referenda on EU membership, in 1972 and in 1994. In a passionate debate, the EU was caricatured as an empire-building bureaucrat with a Hitler moustache, and the anti-EU camp described themselves as "the people against the power". All this in a country whose history of being the weaker part of a union with Denmark, enforced union with Sweden and more recently German occupation in the Second World War, is still kept alive with grand annual public parades.

On the other wing of the 'No' camp, are the left-wingers who fear that joining the EU means dismantling the Norwegian welfare system and losing control of the country's vast natural resources.

Some Norwegian politicians, however, believe that in the long run, rejection of the constitution by France and the Netherlands and its possible collapse might boost the 'Yes' camp. A less politically integrated union with a European Commission that lacks power and influence would make a future membership more palatable, even for the most persistent independence activists.

Bondevik tries to look on the bright side. "This could lead to a more flexible and looser union than the treaty suggests," he said. "It is possible that people's views on the EU will become more positive."

Pending a turnaround in public opinion, he has decided to put a lid on the EU membership discussion, at least until the end of his next term of office, which would - if his centre-right coalition wins the September general election - run for four more years,.

Former Labour Party prime minister Thorbjørn Jagland declared that dropping the debate and attempting to hold a referendum in the next term of office was a decision made too quickly.

"It is not a proof of responsible foreign policy to conclude something like that within only a few hours after the French referendum," he said. "The people have not rejected the EU as a whole. The majority are in favour."

Jagland does not rule out a bid for Norwegian membership of the EU sometime between 2005 and 2009.

Analysis feature on the debate in Norway on the question of EU membership of the country after the rejection of the Constitutional Treaty in France and the Netherlands, 29 May and 1 June 2005.