Why Norway is edging towards a fresh EU membership bid
90 comments
·March 31, 2025sondr3
aziaziazi
What would make your agriculture and fishing industries less competitive by entering our market? I understand EU gives massive subsidies for those, wouldnt your farmers also benefit from those? EU money is distributed regarding the land usage [0], not the production quantity or sustainability. Norway seems a big country and the big deers (or whatever) ranchers would thrive with our system as well as does the biggest ranches in other EU countries. Don’t get me work, this system is unsustainable as it promotes the most land intensive food creation and EU still rely on worldwide importation for its animal feed needs.
0 https://www.universiteitleiden.nl/en/news/2024/04/how-eu-far...
sondr3
Norway has incredibly high tolls and tariffs on importing food (a bit ironic nowadays), primarily to protect the local farmers etc. We're a big country, but the amount of arable land is small and the climate does us no favors. We're at about 39% self sufficient for food, and import a majority of our vegetables, grains and fruits (Norway is one of the biggest importers of food in the world). Fact of the matter is that the only thing that props up local farmers is the subsidies and high import fees, if we join the EU that will have to go and local farms will not be able to compete on the open market. There's obviously much more nuance and details here, but that's the gist of why a lot of people don't want to join the EU. The last vote was essentially decided by the agricultural industry in Norway.
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rich_sasha
That would make Brexit even more of a tragic joke than it already is. Norway was the prime example of how countries thrive outside the EU. When endlessly deliberating on what kind of relationship Britain wants with the EU, "Norway+" was one of the nauseatingly-often repeated chants, only to be discarded for something far looser.
And now the "Norway+" OG wants in... maybe.
pavlov
Norway+ never made any sense because Norway is a pure rule-taker. To gain access to the EU market, it adopts all EU legislation but gets no say in how it’s written.
So the plus sign was always doing an awful lot of work. Presumably it meant that Britain wouldn’t be a rule-taker but somehow would still get the benefits of a pseudo-membership like Norway does. The problem there was that nobody could explain how this would have been better than the special rules EU membership that the UK already had negotiated over decades.
slau
There’s also a remarkable cognitive dissonance thinking that the EU would “accept” being dumped (very publicly and dramatically, with many instances of name calling), followed by having their old partner crawling back asking for an open relationship, because “but Norway+”.
Norway wasn’t a founding member. Norway never fully joined and then partially pulled out.
I really hope the UK rejoins eventually, but I will never support them having the prime position they used to enjoy.
wqaatwt
Aren’t there still some very significant barriers at least for food imports from the EU? They wouldn’t be possible with full membership.
Of course the overwhelming majority of Norwegians might not mind lower prices that much..
piva00
Food and beverages have barriers since the EU subsidises those inside the free market. In turn that also causes Norwegian food prices to be massively inflated compared to its EU's peers (like Sweden and Denmark).
When traveling to Norway I notice a lot how the food is both lower quality (in taste, not in safety) while being quite a bit more expensive than in Sweden.
The major political block hanging over Norway's EU ascension are fisheries and agriculture since those industries don't know how they would compete against cheaper EU products.
xenonite
"gets no say in how it’s written" ... well this is the same case for member countries (they also have only few things to say), and was one of the reasons for Brexit.
pavlov
Pre-Brexit Britain was the driver for big chunks of EU legislation like the financial services framework.
Obviously you don’t get to write every law to your liking, but Britain certainly wasn’t lacking in influence. They mostly did a good job of picking their battles, but couldn’t make that case to their own voters (many of whom just didn’t care about things like Britain’s finance leadership, of course).
bananapub
err, no, that's just the usual nonsense people who both don't like the EU and also don't understand it
lifestyleguru
EU parliament is mostly empty during sessions and laws are written by lobbyists. Nothing stops Norway and UK from lobbying. Buying eastern European deputy for them is pennies. Only poor states benefit from full membership.
slaw
Poor states are exploited. EU benefits mostly Germany and France.
mytailorisrich
Bluntly the issue with Brexit is that the UK had no plan and still has no plan.
In any case, it will take a long time to adapt but at least the country should have a plan to make the most of it and invest over the long term in that plan. Instead they've just only tried to minimise change and to stay as aligned on the EU as possible.
It's not a comment for or against Brexit, it's just an observation that it is really a "go for it or don't do it" situation.
Note, too, that one of the key measure that people wanted out of Brexit was to end free movement. If you end free movement there is not many options because that means you are firmly outside of the common market. Norway has free movement, and even Switzerland has. Considering the absolute shamble that is immigration policy in Europe, and still is in the UK, I can't see things evolving towards "rejoining" any time soon.
rich_sasha
That was always the argument for Brexit: removing constraints allows you to move to a better local optimum - and for the right price it is worth it. Mathematically, this is undeniably true.
The counterargument was that the new optimum isn't much better, the price is too high, and arguably even the UK will not be able to manoeuvre itself to that new optimum (like, execute better trade deals, or replace wonky regulation with less wonky ones).
So I guess you are saying (?) Brexit is still a net positive because the potential upside is still there. People like me say that upside is not actually realizable under real world conditions - and so far that seems to hold. You mention free movement, and if anything, UK immigration is more shambolic, not less, compared to pre-Brexit.
I guess it is hard to know. Is colonising Mars merely an engineering problem or major challenge to science? I guess either, depending on how you look at it.
ggm
pavlov
It’s kind of crazy that I pay 429 € / year for a subscription to FT but it doesn’t include all the content, so I still have to go to archive.is for this “Premium” stuff.
Why don’t we Standard edition proles get access to this article about Norway? Makes no sense.
Media companies seem to optimize for making their customers vaguely unhappy.
disgruntledphd2
The Premium subscription has mostly newsletters, many of which are very very good.
Personally, I think it's worth the money but it's definitely not cheap.
moomin
I’m as pro-EU as they come, but if Brexit taught me one thing, it’s: when you make decisions like this, you need a stable popular majority. Otherwise the “fool all the people some of the time” crowd will see an opportunity.
ralfn
I think there are three preconditions that helped brexit happen:
- it's much easier to influence politics in English than in Norwegian (or Dutch or Greek, etc.). The language can act as a protective barrier making it obvious which message is from the 'out' group and which is from the 'in' group.
- there was a lot of money invested by foreign actors in into influencing brexit because the UK is a large economy. The RoI is there.
- UK joining the EU came in tandem with the end of the Imperial times. The significance of the UK and it's economy is now proportional to their population. On the way down people are always ready to hear about scapegoats.
Norway has none of these things. Culturally well protected, not big enough to be a priority in influences and they went from poverty to wealthy in the same time.
On the other hand. Imperial times are making a comeback.
rich_sasha
UK went in on a stable majority in a referendum in 1975 (or rather one to confirm whether to remain) and won with a whopping 67% support. So even that isn't a guarantee.
lucraft
A big win, but not so stable - IIRC within a few years of this referendum the polls had swung back to about 2/3 against membership of the EC, where it remained for a long time.
tfourb
Stable majorities rely on a country's political and media elite to behave somewhat responsibly. In the UK, the EU became a welcome punching bag that every negative domestic feeling and development could be pinned on. That's a quick way to destroy even the most positive of associations and is at the root of the Brexit disaster (and the anti-EU sentiment in other countries like Germany).
rich_sasha
True, of course. But how else would you gauge the stability of a majority? I would have thought the size of it is the main proxy.
mytailorisrich
The issue was the EU expansion to the East starting in 2004.
Restrictions on free movements were too weak and the UK was the only country to choose not to impose any (along with Ireland). This created a huge influc of Eastern Europeans into the UK, which resulted in a surge of support for abolising, or at least strongly limiting, free movement.
Then, fate struck and Merkel had the "good idea" to unilaterally have an open border policy towards Middle Eastern "refugees" right before the Brexit referendum... The rest, as they say, is history.
disgruntledphd2
> The issue was the EU expansion to the East starting in 2004.
The EU expansion that was promoted by the UK government (presumably after reading Machiavelli's Republics)?
> Restrictions on free movements were too weak and the UK was the only country to choose not to impose any (along with Ireland). This created a huge influc of Eastern Europeans into the UK, which resulted in a surge of support for abolising, or at least strongly limiting, free movement.
They didn't impose any because they were pushing for this expansion.
rich_sasha
It's a funny one. The average Brit was financially better off with all these Eastern Europeans coming in and doing jobs in short supply. Around me in the UK, most shops, restaurants, preschools and many more establishments are short-staffed. This is also the real reason why migration numbers are off the charts - the vacuum of business needs sucks people in.
And yet the Brits don't seem to want these people. Fine - their country, their right. But instead, free of the yoke of the EU, they got themselves lots of immigrants from far abroad, while doctor and nurse shortages abound.
I guess sometimes it's hard to get the thing you want, and not the consequences of it.
FirmwareBurner
EU of 1975 was a different beast than EU of 2025. Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it, now it's bureaucratic monstrosity ruling over its members without the people having representation.
rich_sasha
Do you live in a EU country? EU rules are generally good things: rule of law, sane deficit and debt rules etc. And in practice states have a lot of sway.
I would say in all areas of governance, post-Brexit the quality of government has decreased, despite throwing off the yoke of EU. And UK has one of the more professional civil service bodies out there.
chithanh
> Back then it was just a treaty for free trade and movement, that's it
Not at all. Maybe you are thinking of EFTA, not EU. Or you are just revisionist.
EU was never just about free trade. Back when it was founded as ECSC it was about maintaining peace and putting community interest over national interest.
Quite soon after the UK joined, environmental regulations took hold that forced it to stop being the "Dirty man of Europe". Brexit opponents rightly feared that this would return after leaving the EU.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/feb/03/brexit-w...
poisonborz
How could 27 independent member states - instead of one federated state, which, by definition, a "bureucratic monstrosity" - compete on the world stage?
spwa4
The EU has lost almost every direct vote over joining. And let's just not talk about what happened with the initial formation of the EU. It involved a democracy sending commando forces kidnapping EU politicians to execute them. But most famously:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_Dutch_European_Constituti...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2005_French_European_Constitut...
(look at the list of all referenda in those pages, because this wasn't just the Netherlands and France rejecting the EU)
Note almost all the referendums that were planned, were canceled. Any honest person should point out: they were canceled because the odds of the referendum passing was negligible. Of course, the EU immediately went against the obvious will of the voters through the treaty of Lisbon.
Needless to say, as per usual, the EU makes sure it's popular with politicians (e.g. special tax-exempt status, BUT full social benefits, for any EU personnel. Plus many other things, including an excellent restaurant). So there was a long and thorough discussion in the NL parliament on how to override the will of the voters.
Just like, in this case, the party in parliament is bluntly stating they're looking for a way to get membership approved knowing full well a majority is against it.
There's yet another reason I'd be wary: the poorer an EU citizen is, the more likely they're to vote against EU. Given the economic performance of the EU of the last 10 years I would expect ... and I do see recent election results (near-majorities for the extreme right, and growth for extreme-left parties that also aren't helpful, in both France and Germany)
The EU itself is extremely frustrated about these events, because the whole point of the "EU constitution" that became the Treaty of Lisbon was to trade a bit of EU power for increased legitimacy through a popular Europe-wide constitution. After forcing through the treaty of Lisbon ... the net result of it was less legitimacy instead of more, and less power for the EU executive. They are pretty frustrated since the EU executive actually fulfills a LOT of government functions of the member states.
Reality is that for ~70 years the people of the EU have rejected the EU the vast majority of chances they got. Politicians have seen it, imho correctly, as a necessity. Even a country like Germany cannot reasonably negotiate as equals with something like the US, Russia or China, to say nothing of countries like Luxembourgh or Serbia.
I guarantee you that while Norway's politicians want to join the EU, they are very unlikely to actually commit to a fair vote to join the bloc.
rich_sasha
Is that right? Looking here: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Referendums_related_to_the_E...
This suggests actually most referenda passed in favour of EU membership. There are 48 events and 7 "rejections". These are the votes in Greenland, San Marino, two in Norway, two in Switzerland, and Brexit. Still a fairly conclusive record of 85% in favour of EU membership.
spwa4
Ok ... now include the fact that for every referendum that passed there are about 5 that were suddenly canceled, some halfway through.
And I don't understand, given western European election results of the last 20 years, anyone could argue the EU either is popular or is becoming more popular. Even in Germany (which along with France has more than it's fair share of power in the EU), the German state is 1000x more popular than the EU.
mytailorisrich
The EU Constitution was a monstrosity. For the referendum in France they actually sent a hardcopy to every registered voter... It was such a huge, unreadable document that the people remembered the good old advice "if you don't understand, don't sign".
Great example in democracy. Unfortunately, and not unusual in the EU, they carried on without taking notice and most of the content was simply moved into the Lisbon Treaty.
disgruntledphd2
> The EU Constitution was a monstrosity.
I really don't agree, I thought it was much better than Lisbon (which I voted against twice on the principle that the rest of the EU didn't appear to want it).
moomin
If people ran with "If you don't understand, don't sign" in general, every major tech firm on the planet would collapse.
More generally, the world is extremely complex. None of us understand all of it, but the constitution of the EU needs to engage with a surprisingly large percentage of it. There's no way such a document can ever be easy to read.
FirmwareBurner
>Context: Western Europe’s biggest oil and gas producer has twice rejected joining the EU in referendums in 1972 and 1994
If people rejected it twice already, I have no idea what can change their mind to join the shitshow the EU is today. And the article provides no details on why the Norwegian people would change their mind this time if given a vote in a referendum.
Especially that they already have a lot of the benefits of the EU such as free trade, free movement, and access to the common market but without the political interference of the EU over their environmental, fishing and oil industries and immigration policies (and we all saw how "competent" the EU is at such policies). And they're already part of NATO so they have defense covered too.
It's more important for them that they keep their sovereignty and not hand it to corrupt unelected bureaucrats from Brussels like Ursula v.d. Leyen or to whoever is gonna replace her.
joakleaf
Serious question; Why do you feel EU is a "shitshow"? What EU policies do you feel have been overreaching on the individual member country's sovereignty lately?
And why do you feel Leyen was unelected? As I understand it, she was elected by the Members of European Parliament [1], and the MEPs were elected by the people of EU last year during the election. And Leyen herself was elected as a MEP.
red-iron-pine
> Serious question; Why do you feel EU is a "shitshow"
because Russian agit-prop bots are as much as 30-40% of activity on many social media sites.
FirmwareBurner
So everyone disliking some EU policies or EU leaders, must be a Russian bot? You think no free thinking person can find some of EU's actions as being bad for them?
FirmwareBurner
>Serious question; Why do you feel EU is a "shitshow"? What EU policies do you feel have been overreaching on the individual member country's sovereignty lately?
Off the top of my head:
- failing to addressing illegal immigration and even supporting it
- bad energy policies
- bad monetary policies
- no policies to stimulate innovation, economic growth, birth rates or affordable housing
- trying to push surveillance policies
audunw
> It's more important for them that they keep their sovereignty and not hand it to corrupt unelected bureaucrats
Joining EU doesn't hand over sovereignty, and the UK has now shown that leaving again isn't just a theoretical option.
Norway is already part of EEA and has to implement basically every trade related regulation that the EU passes (a veto is theoretically possible, but it doesn't make sense to use it if Norway wants to stay part of EEA). So joining EU would mainly only change one thing: Norway would have a voice and a vote in the EU.
There are other pillars of the EU, and Norway has some genuine concerns related to fishing and farming which have exceptions from the EEA. But I'd say it's really worth trading those exemptions for having a stronger voice in regulations around literally everything else Norway trades with EU.
I also disagree strongly that EU is a shitshow (even if there are many issues as with any large system). What the EU has accomplished is unprecedented in the world IMO. It strikes a better balance of what it does and doesn't legislate compared to the US federal government, and is arguably a more mature and functional political entity. There are some powerful things the EU can't do that the US federal government can do, but that's not due to any flaw of the EU, it's a conscious choice related to keeping the member nations sovereign.
Another comparable entity may be China. I don't think I need to argue that China isn't a model worth following. I think it says a lot that people in China arguably has less freedom to move/work across provinces than EU members have in EU countries.
The positives that the EU has achieved far outweighs the negatives. From the very big (managing to economically integrate a very diverse set of countries, without sacrificing sovereignty, and arguably securing long term peace in western/central Europe) to the small (pushing Apple to allow third party app stores and USB-C)
mrweasel
> unelected bureaucrats from Brussels like Ursula v.d. Leyen
Isn't she pretty much elected the same way the Norwegian prime minister is? That is so say: Not actually elected at all, but appointed by a majority in parliament.
The article doesn't mention that the polls suggest that it still only at most 40% of the population that supports an EU membership. I doubt that's high enough that the politicians would risk an actual vote on the matter. Especially as Norway have many of the benefits of a membership already, though no influence in the EU parliament.
amonith
> If people rejected it twice already, I have no idea what can change their mind
The people themselves can change. I mean in a literal sense. It's been 31 years since 1994 and different people will vote today.
Arnt
I voted against joining.
Norway has those benefits because it's one of the three net contributors. Norway, the Netherlands and Germany pay more to the EU than the EU pays to them. The treaties that were signed wouldn't have been signed without money changing hands. The argument now is that while Norway does have influence by virtue of paying, Norway's reach into the institutions isn't as deep as it should have been.
Basically: When von der Leyen presents a policy, the committee that wrote it did not include a Norwegian. Someone from the committee may unofficially have had lunch with someone who works in a building across the street, but that's not the same.
iknowstuff
One of the three? Lol what a silly statement
https://www.euronews.com/business/2024/12/09/eu-budget-who-p...
lifestyleguru
but... Belgium and Luxembourg?!
arccy
sounds like you should join to have a seat at the table...?
rafaelmn
With US becoming actively hostile to Europe and Russia too close for comfort, it makes sense to group, especially as talk of European army building starts. But unfortunately, like you mentioned, the current structure is governed by impotent bureaucrats (vs actual leaders) and the small interests diverge all over Europe.
rich_sasha
> shitshow
Compared to what large bureaucracy? US federal government? China? India? UN? I'd say EU is about as sane as these things go. Large bureaucracies tend to be a little crazy.
And as for the merits of it: NATO is fraying at the edges, and EU is the only credible alternative. It is hard to imagine basically all EU members reassembling a military union outside of the EU. Which would put Norway and the UK in a tight spot.
As to the costs, it's the usual tradeoffs. EU has single set of rules, which in practice Norway has to accept without a seat at the table - they literally say that in TFA. That's already some sovereignty outsourced. They are considering swapping it for a vote.
Also the single diplomacy aspect is massive when dealing with Trump. EU can apply counter-tarriffs much more easily than a non-EU country.
coffeebeqn
I don’t think the EU is the best second option after NATO if the US were to leave. You’d leave out UK, Turkey, Canada, possible Asian allies, etc. which would make it quite a bit weaker than it could be
rich_sasha
Well, that's indeed the prime issue - but also I suspect why Norway is even considering is. There were also some noises about Canada considering EU membership (!). Turkey would be a hard nut though, especially with the recent activities.
I mean, when there's will, there's a way. It could notionally be an EU organisation, with third-party affiliates, a bit like ESA or Horizon. But even then, I posit that it is more convenient to have it notionally be a unit of the EU for most EU members - and by extension, most NATO-ex-US countries.
robertlagrant
> NATO is fraying at the edges, and EU is the only credible alternative
The EU isn't a military unit though, is it? It's a regulatory one.
mrweasel
> The EU isn't a military unit though, is it?
The EU has it's own version of NATOs article 5, it's the "Mutual defence clause", but people tend to forget that.
From the excerpt:
> This clause provides that if a Member State is the victim of armed aggression on its territory, the other Member States have an obligation to aid and assist it by all the means in their power
rich_sasha
There's a growing concern that the US would not defend its allies, or worse, join Russia in a European war.
So, right or wrong, Europe is thinking of building an alternative. It would require not only military, but also political coordination. The options are to do it within, or outside the EU.
Within the EU, it is somewhat straightforward. As a sibling comment says, there is already a vague commitment to mutual defence. There is a forum for political discussion, common diplomacy, mechanisms for coordinating industrial policy, the works. And any changes could be seen as incremental strengthening of an existing thing.
To do it outside of the EU, most of all, makes the original concern explicit - it is saying US has left the NATO. This is in no-one's benefit. Even ambiguous US participation is valuable to Europe.
The other downside is that, as is, a EU "NATO" can't easily include UK and Norway, both valuable allies. Which is maybe what Norway wants to address here.
mytailorisrich
Ah but that's exactly what the EU is trying to do, me thinks. They are using the curcumstances as an opportunity and pretext to involve themselves in military issues, perhaps even to propose full-on EU forces soon.
hagbard_c
> Compared to what large bureaucracy? ... Large bureaucracies tend to be a little crazy.
So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracies any more than you have to.
> NATO is fraying at the edges, and EU is the only credible alternative
Not really, Norway is already part of NORDEFCO and the Nordic Council, they're not 'alone'.
rich_sasha
> So there's a good reason not to subject yourself to large bureaucracies any more than you have to.
Some things require scale. As I say elsewhere in the thread, UK left for this very reason and is worse off in every single metric they were hoping to improve - GDP growth, immigration control, quality of governance, environmental concerns, amount of red tape...
The workings of a bureaucracy are not the same as the final outputs. IMO and IME the quality of EU outputs is generally high.
mrweasel
Norway is also a member of JEF (Joint Expeditionary Force), but I'm not sure how JEF would act if a one member is attacked.
oldpersonintx
[dead]
I think an EU membership will only happen in Norway when the old generations die out, the yes/no divide is a big generational thing. Even though the latest poll only shows a six percent difference between yes/no, it's only as high as it is now because of the current political situation with trade wars and actual wars. Any vote now for a membership will only happen when a party knows the yes side will win, doing otherwise will postpone the vote another thirty years again. Personally I think we should join the EU, we're already heavily tangled with EU laws and regulations, but I understand the concerns for our agriculture and fishing industries.