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On January 20 2019 00:35 Excludos wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2019 23:35 iamthedave wrote:On January 19 2019 21:48 Belisarius wrote:
All these statements that a Norway deal is categorically worse do raise the question: why does Norway itself have a Norway deal? Presumably there is some advantage vs membership, if they've kept the arrangement for 40 years?
I do wonder if that's what will fall out in the end. A Norway deal has the advantage of paying lip service to "the will of the people" while avoiding the consequences of actually carrying out the will of the people. The argument that it's worse than remain in every way could be too complicated to matter. Per my dad (who is Norwegian and has always kept up with politics in the homeland AND worked in the fishing industry most of his life) the EU's fishing regulations are too disruptive, given that fishing is one of Norway's biggest industries. I can't remember clearly, but I think Norway also punches a bit higher than its size suggests in a certain way and that means it would have to pay a somewhat disproportionately large amount into the EU coffer. Those are the wedge issues that have kept them out. Interestingly, the Norwegian Conservatives are the ones who want them in (same as ours did until now) and lament that the Norwegian people can't help but engage with the issue emotionally instead of economically. Our politics are..ehm..complicated. A lot of our right wing politicians wants to join EU, but absolutely none of our conservative voters wants that (Who tend to vote for the "workers party" who are leaning slightly left..because fuck logic). Farmers and fishers especially does absolutely not want anything to do with EU as they believe it would hurt their industry. Meanwhile they fail to understand that we're already part of it, and absolutely nothing is going to change by joining except for suddenly getting a representative to voice our opinions. We're already accepting every requirement the EU has towards its members, and everything else we're against (Like the Euro) is optional.
Yeah, that was my dad's conclusion as well, but I was just commenting on what he said was why they stayed out. Or 'you' stayed out since your name says you're over there.
Is it true you have to pay a bit less into the EU coffers because you're not a full member?
Also... You'll have to help me slightly because I never properly quizzed dad on the details. Your conservative voters don't vote for the conservative party? Who votes for the conservatives then?
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To my understanding most Norwegians aren't thrilled about their relationship with the EU(no representation) but have come to accept it. The big difference compared to the UK, apart from previously mentioned, is that it is a small country that understands it's place in Europe and is more inclined to accept being law takers. I strongly doubt a similar relationship between UK and EU would be a happy one for long.
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On January 20 2019 00:48 iamthedave wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2019 00:35 Excludos wrote:On January 19 2019 23:35 iamthedave wrote:On January 19 2019 21:48 Belisarius wrote:
All these statements that a Norway deal is categorically worse do raise the question: why does Norway itself have a Norway deal? Presumably there is some advantage vs membership, if they've kept the arrangement for 40 years?
I do wonder if that's what will fall out in the end. A Norway deal has the advantage of paying lip service to "the will of the people" while avoiding the consequences of actually carrying out the will of the people. The argument that it's worse than remain in every way could be too complicated to matter. Per my dad (who is Norwegian and has always kept up with politics in the homeland AND worked in the fishing industry most of his life) the EU's fishing regulations are too disruptive, given that fishing is one of Norway's biggest industries. I can't remember clearly, but I think Norway also punches a bit higher than its size suggests in a certain way and that means it would have to pay a somewhat disproportionately large amount into the EU coffer. Those are the wedge issues that have kept them out. Interestingly, the Norwegian Conservatives are the ones who want them in (same as ours did until now) and lament that the Norwegian people can't help but engage with the issue emotionally instead of economically. Our politics are..ehm..complicated. A lot of our right wing politicians wants to join EU, but absolutely none of our conservative voters wants that (Who tend to vote for the "workers party" who are leaning slightly left..because fuck logic). Farmers and fishers especially does absolutely not want anything to do with EU as they believe it would hurt their industry. Meanwhile they fail to understand that we're already part of it, and absolutely nothing is going to change by joining except for suddenly getting a representative to voice our opinions. We're already accepting every requirement the EU has towards its members, and everything else we're against (Like the Euro) is optional. Yeah, that was my dad's conclusion as well, but I was just commenting on what he said was why they stayed out. Or 'you' stayed out since your name says you're over there. Is it true you have to pay a bit less into the EU coffers because you're not a full member? Also... You'll have to help me slightly because I never properly quizzed dad on the details. Your conservative voters don't vote for the conservative party? Who votes for the conservatives then?
First off: No we pay more than Germany and France, but less than Sweden. I'm not fully educated on what exactly decides how much we pay, but this is what a quick google search told me.
Our political system is made to encourage diversity. We don't have first past the post or anything similar to the EC, and parties can join forces to gain above 50% votes and become joint governing parties. While we do have true left and right wing parties, they are generally too small to make an impact (Like Red, The Communist party or..I dunno, I'm failing to remember any true conservative parties. The retirement party maybe?), but they can sometimes get enough votes to get a say in local elections.
Instead, all parties have different values which ranges all across the scale, and most often tend to be conservative on some subjects and liberal on others, which combined puts them somewhere left or right of the middle. EU is one of the subjects which parties which are conservative on other areas wants. For instance, the ruling party right now is called "Right" (Don't let the name indicate where they are on the scale, because another party we have is called "Left", and they are also leaning a tad more conservative these days), who are conservative on things like immigration and the environment, but liberal on most economic subjects, and the on EU.
Our biggest party, mentioned earlier, is called the Labour party. These guys are hard to place because they don't really stand for anything. Their name holds the tradition of supporting the workers class, but have long since stopped having that as their priority (And gets a lot of votes from elderly people who have stopped thinking critically and have "always voted for them"). These guys are slightly left leaning on the environment, schools, hospitals and immigration, despite not wanting to spend any money on accomplishing any of it, and right leaning on other subjects, like the EU.
(I might be slightly biased here after observing their bullshit over the years, but I call them the corruption party. Especially in my city where they have reigned for years while dumping our economic growth and spending over 300 million dollars on a futuristic bus system which aren't actually going to solve any of the numerous problems we have with them. Politicians have been also allowed to buy stocks in companies before using their services at bloated prices, including the road tax ring around the city. At least I understand the greedy intentions there. The previously mentioned bus project doesn't even have that excuse, and is just mismanagement from one end to the other. They're not the slight better on the national scale. Luckily their previous charismatic leader stepped down for a job as the General Secretary in Nato, and the party haven't recovered since /rant)
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Thanks for the info. Very interesting. I've always been a fan of coaltion style governments, but it's surprising you don't have a 'main' left or right party.
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A quick question if you don't mind. When you said
On January 20 2019 01:22 Excludos wrote:
(party) who are conservative on things like immigration and the environment, but liberal on most economic subjects, and the on EU.
what does being conservative or liberal on environment mean to you guys in Norway? I'm just asking because while reading that I thought to myself "mmmh, I wonder if that's how it works in the US or over here".
In the US, I think we can all agree, that a conservative take on the environment means that they value the economy more than protection of the environment for example. While a liberal take on it is usually seen as something more along the lines of protecting the environment even if that means losing out economically.
In contrast, in Germany I would never say that's the case for us. Yes, the Greens who are left overall clearly do care about the environment. Arguably more than any other party. But one of the bigger demographics for the left-leaning SPD (I guess I have to describe them as "used to be" 2nd biggest party for decades) on the other hand would be people employed in the coal industry so they certainly strike me as a party that wants to prolong Coal-energy for example. Or wanted to. Saying that these days is really unpopular with everyone else in Germany.
The CDU is def along those lines as well it's just that they wanted more nuclear energy instead of coal, but I wouldn't say there's a clear conservative/liberal cut when it comes to stance on environment in Germany.
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[QUOTE]On January 20 2019 02:58 Toadesstern wrote:
A quick question if you don't mind. When you said
[QUOTE]On January 20 2019 01:22 Excludos wrote:
(party) who are conservative on things like immigration and the environment, but liberal on most economic subjects, and the on EU.[/quote]
what does being conservative or liberal on environment mean to you guys in Norway? I'm just asking because while reading that I thought to myself "mmmh, I wonder if that's how it works in the US or over here".
It is a bit funny for a Norwegian that liberal vs conservative is a key conflict in the U S. Two centrist parties, the christian conservatives and the "academic" liberals are currently negotiating joining the rightwing government, which currently include the populist right and the traditional rightwing.
Liberal should generally mean "allowing" in my book, especially for things like abortion and prostitution, which are the opposite of the christian conservatives, even though they are in the same place of the left/right line.
"Liberalist" goes farther and wants low taxes, few laws and scaling down the government as much as possible.
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On January 20 2019 02:58 Toadesstern wrote:A quick question if you don't mind. When you said Show nested quote +On January 20 2019 01:22 Excludos wrote:
(party) who are conservative on things like immigration and the environment, but liberal on most economic subjects, and the on EU. what does being conservative or liberal on environment mean to you guys in Norway? I'm just asking because while reading that I thought to myself " mmmh, I wonder if that's how it works in the US or over here". In the US, I think we can all agree, that a conservative take on the environment means that they value the economy more than protection of the environment for example. While a liberal take on it is usually seen as something more along the lines of protecting the environment even if that means losing out economically. In contrast, in Germany I would never say that's the case for us. Yes, the Greens who are left overall clearly do care about the environment. Arguably more than any other party. But one of the bigger demographics for the left-leaning SPD (I guess I have to describe them as "used to be" 2nd biggest party for decades) on the other hand would be people employed in the coal industry so they certainly strike me as a party that wants to prolong Coal-energy for example. Or wanted to. Saying that these days is really unpopular with everyone else in Germany. The CDU is def along those lines as well it's just that they wanted more nuclear energy instead of coal, but I wouldn't say there's a clear conservative/liberal cut when it comes to stance on environment in Germany.
The US politics always goes to one extreme or the other. No one in Norway denies that we have an environmental problem or anything. We're all working towards it. The main difference between liberal and conservative here on that issue is more how far we're willing to go. The parties on the left side (excluding the Labour party who doesn't stand for anything) generally wants to go all out, banning petrol engine cars from the roads in just a few years, and implementing strict regulations on every industry, while the conservative opinion is that "we're such a small country we don't impact anything anyways. Why should we take charge? Look at China" etc etc. There's also the big ethical elephant in the room of us being one of the biggest exporters of oil and gas (and the literal reason why we transformed from a third world country to one of the richest), which everyone is just collectively hoping is going to sort itself out when we run dry or when everyone stops using it.
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On January 20 2019 03:19 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 20 2019 02:58 Toadesstern wrote:A quick question if you don't mind. When you said On January 20 2019 01:22 Excludos wrote:
(party) who are conservative on things like immigration and the environment, but liberal on most economic subjects, and the on EU. what does being conservative or liberal on environment mean to you guys in Norway? I'm just asking because while reading that I thought to myself " mmmh, I wonder if that's how it works in the US or over here". It is a bit funny for a Norwegian that liberal vs conservative is a key conflict in the U S. Two centrist parties, the christian conservatives and the "academic" liberals are currently negotiating joining the rightwing government, which currently include the populist right and the traditional rightwing. Liberal should generally mean "allowing" in my book, especially for things like abortion and prostitution, which are the opposite of the christian conservatives, even though they are in the same place of the left/right line. "Liberalist" goes farther and wants low taxes, few laws and scaling down the government as much as possible.
It's honestly a bad scale to begin with, especially when voters and parties are all over the place depending on the topic. I think for most Norwegians red to blue means less "liberal vs conservative" and more "worker class vs country as a whole".
I think the party "Left" is as close to what Americans would call a liberal party as you can get (Willing to sacrifice a lot for the environment, more open to immigration, wants legalisation of certain drugs, etc), but on our scale they're bang in the middle. Like I said earlier we don't really even have a traditional conservative party either, at least not one big enough to matter.
edit: Oh yeah, I forgot which topic we're in for a while there. Ehem. Tl;dr: Norwegian EU deal is pointless, and we gain absolutely nothing from it as opposed to just being a member, despite what our farmers and fishers might say.
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Could be worse. Could be UK, where not too long ago the "left" party went more "right" than the "right" party, then became indistinguishable before going a bit back to the "left". And then the referendum happened.
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Norway28797 Posts
Our parties, from 'left' to 'right', their stance on the EU, with parliamentary representation in parenthesis follows:
Real leftist parties:
The Red Party (actual communists, used to be revolutionary, now they have abandoned that) (1)
Socialist Left (self-explanatory) (11)
Social Democrats:
Labour Party (49) (The status quo party in many ways. Does not pursue EU-membership, but is okay with it, wants to keep efta and schengen)
Centre Party (rural party/used to be called the farmer's party. very opposed to membership in the EU, as they consistently favor decentralization, wants to leave efta and Schengen. Has some populist elements to it rhetorically, but is a slightly left of center party overall) (19)
Green Party (doesn't really care about the EU. (1))
'Right of center-parties'
Christian Democratic Party (traditionally a centrist party, but is currently undergoing a big fragmentation because their leader forced them to make a choice whether to build an alliance with the left or with the right. They narrowly chose the right. Concerned with the environment, with humanitarianism, and then part of them are socially conservative (more christianity in school, anti-abortion) while the other almost half of the party is not. Wants to stay outside the EU, but keep EFTA and Schengen. (8)
Liberal Party (in norwegian, their name is indeed the Left, even though they are the third rightmost party in the norwegian parliament. Consistently liberal - both economically and socially. Wants EU-question to be based on referendum, wants to stay in efta+schengen. (8)
Right wing parties
Conservative party ('Right' in Norwegian), the only real party in Norway that actually wants to join the EU. Biggest governing party atm, and they have the prime minister. (45)
Progress Party - has somewhat different camps. Some are more economically liberal, almost libertarian, other segments are very occupied with welfare/caring for the elderly, and opposed to immigration. Does not want to join the EU, wants to renegotiate parts of EFTA, and possibly leave Schengen. (27)
The two biggest parties are overall most positive towards the EU, but the population as a whole is very negative (66% says no, 22% yes, 12% undecided), so the topic of EU membership isn't really relevant - not even the Conservative party wants to join as long as the population is this opposed. However, there is also public support for maintaining EFTA-membership, and only the far left or far right parties care much about Schengen.
The short story is that Norway values the right of reservation more than it values voting power - which makes quite some sense as we are only 5 million people and would hardly make a dent. Right of reservation is like a 'soft' veto where we're able to avoid implementing some laws and regulations, to my knowledge we've only really used it once though, regarding some postal stuff. But it's considered more useful from a Norwegian perspective than voting rights would be.
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United States43991 Posts
Is the sovereign wealth fund not a concern Eri?
In 2017 it made $131b, about $26,200 per Norwegian. Norway is pretty close to being able to retire and live off the invested principal. I would assume y'all aren't too interested in letting Brits, whose government squandered all their oil money, come on over and enjoy yours.
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Norway28797 Posts
EU membership hasn't been a topic anybody really cares about for the past 20 years (we had a referendum in 1994, the no-side won, and opposition has grown steadily since then), our sovereign wealth fund was much smaller back then, so no, I can't recall the sovereign wealth fund ever being mentioned as a factor against EU-membership. It's basically 'we're already implementing all the EU rules, might as well join' vs 'we're so small that we wouldn't have any say, let's just pay to be part of the common market while having the option of rejecting laws or regulations that we really disagree with'.
I've never heard anyone say anything about EU-membership leading to us having to share the sovereign wealth fund (beyond the degree we're already paying money to be part of the common market) - I think even the Conservative party would find themselves opposed if that was the case. Schengen is somewhat contested from both far left and far right (where the gist of it is that the far left is opposed because working immigrants are willing to work for so little and in such shoddy conditions that it constitutes a deterioration of Norwegian worker rights, whereas the far right is more opposed from a they took our jobs perspective). But overall we're pretty ok with the arrangement.
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On January 21 2019 03:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:
EU membership hasn't been a topic anybody really cares about for the past 20 years (we had a referendum in 1994, the no-side won, and opposition has grown steadily since then), our sovereign wealth fund was much smaller back then, so no, I can't recall the sovereign wealth fund ever being mentioned as a factor against EU-membership. It's basically 'we're already implementing all the EU rules, might as well join' vs 'we're so small that we wouldn't have any say, let's just pay to be part of the common market while having the option of rejecting laws or regulations that we really disagree with'.
I've never heard anyone say anything about EU-membership leading to us having to share the sovereign wealth fund (beyond the degree we're already paying money to be part of the common market) - I think even the Conservative party would find themselves opposed if that was the case. Schengen is somewhat contested from both far left and far right (where the gist of it is that the far left is opposed because working immigrants are willing to work for so little and in such shoddy conditions that it constitutes a deterioration of Norwegian worker rights, whereas the far right is more opposed from a they took our jobs perspective). But overall we're pretty ok with the arrangement.
There is some more to this. 3 sectors were really important in saying no to the EU: fishery, oil and farming. I am not sure to which degree it made sense, but the 94 referendum ended up as no because we were afraid we could end up sharing out natral resources. Lately, the main critizism is intigrating with the EU electricity marked, giving up the increadibly low kwh prices in Norway, which are even cheaper when accounting for the high wages.
Also, Norway has some outrageously protectionist tolls on things like meat, milk and eggs, they are over 400% on many products. Norwegians are somehow ok with this, and it has to do with good looking "cultural lanscapes" and old scares of famines due to not being self sustained with food. I doubt they could have gotten away with those tolls within the EU.
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On January 21 2019 04:34 Slydie wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2019 03:34 Liquid`Drone wrote:
EU membership hasn't been a topic anybody really cares about for the past 20 years (we had a referendum in 1994, the no-side won, and opposition has grown steadily since then), our sovereign wealth fund was much smaller back then, so no, I can't recall the sovereign wealth fund ever being mentioned as a factor against EU-membership. It's basically 'we're already implementing all the EU rules, might as well join' vs 'we're so small that we wouldn't have any say, let's just pay to be part of the common market while having the option of rejecting laws or regulations that we really disagree with'.
I've never heard anyone say anything about EU-membership leading to us having to share the sovereign wealth fund (beyond the degree we're already paying money to be part of the common market) - I think even the Conservative party would find themselves opposed if that was the case. Schengen is somewhat contested from both far left and far right (where the gist of it is that the far left is opposed because working immigrants are willing to work for so little and in such shoddy conditions that it constitutes a deterioration of Norwegian worker rights, whereas the far right is more opposed from a they took our jobs perspective). But overall we're pretty ok with the arrangement. There is some more to this. 3 sectors were really important in saying no to the EU: fishery, oil and farming. I am not sure to which degree it made sense, but the 94 referendum ended up as no because we were afraid we could end up sharing out natral resources. Lately, the main critizism is intigrating with the EU electricity marked, giving up the increadibly low kwh prices in Norway, which are even cheaper when accounting for the high wages. Also, Norway has some outrageously protectionist tolls on things like meat, milk and eggs, they are over 400% on many products. Norwegians are somehow ok with this, and it has to do with good looking "cultural lanscapes" and old scares of famines due to not being self sustained with food. I doubt they could have gotten away with those tolls within the EU.
Swedish food stores on the Norwegian borders are a direct consequence of those tolls. They tend to have bigger packages than normal there as well.
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Norway28797 Posts
Yep, we care a lot about preserving rural communities, being self-sustainable food wise, maintaining some smaller farms, which is hard or perhaps impossible to do without tariffs on food..
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On January 19 2019 03:09 Toadesstern wrote:
I think there's a serious chance for the EU to be willing to give the UK some slack in hopes of a softer Brexit-deal.
That's obviously not what the people voting for Brexit want but I think you have to look at these two things strictly separately:
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal? An extension to effectively get a similar but slightly altered deal? Unlikely in my opinion.
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal in hope that it becomes a softer Brexit or an extension because in their minds that could lead to Brexit being thrown out of the windows alltogether? That's something I could easily see happening from an EU point of view.
The eu will give the uk extensions for as long as they want. Preferably forever because that would mean that Britain would still be in the eu. They just want to avoid a brexit at all costs,and if it has to come to a brexit then the softest brexit possible.
For the americans here:the eu is way more then the pragmatic cooperation of a few states. Its the ideal of progress and a world without nation states. European states have been working towards this unification since the end of ww2.
It simply may not fail and that's why all the major European political parties are hoping England wont leave. And if they leave then in the softest possible way.
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On January 21 2019 12:10 pmh wrote:Show nested quote +On January 19 2019 03:09 Toadesstern wrote:
I think there's a serious chance for the EU to be willing to give the UK some slack in hopes of a softer Brexit-deal.
That's obviously not what the people voting for Brexit want but I think you have to look at these two things strictly separately:
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal? An extension to effectively get a similar but slightly altered deal? Unlikely in my opinion.
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal in hope that it becomes a softer Brexit or an extension because in their minds that could lead to Brexit being thrown out of the windows alltogether? That's something I could easily see happening from an EU point of view. The eu will give the uk extensions for as long as they want. Preferably forever because that would mean that Britain would still be in the eu. They just want to avoid a brexit at all costs,and if it has to come to a brexit then the softest brexit possible.
Nope. Extension must be accepted by all member states and there are MEP elections in May. We can't have British MEP's freshly voted in and staying for 5 years after the UK has left the EU.
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On January 21 2019 14:11 schaf wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2019 12:10 pmh wrote:On January 19 2019 03:09 Toadesstern wrote:
I think there's a serious chance for the EU to be willing to give the UK some slack in hopes of a softer Brexit-deal.
That's obviously not what the people voting for Brexit want but I think you have to look at these two things strictly separately:
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal? An extension to effectively get a similar but slightly altered deal? Unlikely in my opinion.
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal in hope that it becomes a softer Brexit or an extension because in their minds that could lead to Brexit being thrown out of the windows alltogether? That's something I could easily see happening from an EU point of view. The eu will give the uk extensions for as long as they want. Preferably forever because that would mean that Britain would still be in the eu. They just want to avoid a brexit at all costs,and if it has to come to a brexit then the softest brexit possible. Nope. Extension must be accepted by all member states and there are MEP elections in May. We can't have British MEP's freshly voted in and staying for 5 years after the UK has left the EU.
My understanding is that Article 50 can be revoked by UK without approval by other members. This would be an extension of sorts and it would be done on the proviso of 'we'll call it when we're actually ready to leave this time.'
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On January 21 2019 23:05 Deleuze wrote:Show nested quote +On January 21 2019 14:11 schaf wrote:On January 21 2019 12:10 pmh wrote:On January 19 2019 03:09 Toadesstern wrote:
I think there's a serious chance for the EU to be willing to give the UK some slack in hopes of a softer Brexit-deal.
That's obviously not what the people voting for Brexit want but I think you have to look at these two things strictly separately:
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal? An extension to effectively get a similar but slightly altered deal? Unlikely in my opinion.
Chance to renegotiate parts of the deal in hope that it becomes a softer Brexit or an extension because in their minds that could lead to Brexit being thrown out of the windows alltogether? That's something I could easily see happening from an EU point of view. The eu will give the uk extensions for as long as they want. Preferably forever because that would mean that Britain would still be in the eu. They just want to avoid a brexit at all costs,and if it has to come to a brexit then the softest brexit possible. Nope. Extension must be accepted by all member states and there are MEP elections in May. We can't have British MEP's freshly voted in and staying for 5 years after the UK has left the EU. My understanding is that Article 50 can be revoked by UK without approval by other members. This would be an extension of sorts and it would be done on the proviso of 'we'll call it when we're actually ready to leave this time.' No one is going to fall for "We will stop it now but we're totally going to start it up again really soon, pinky promise".
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EPT
