Bondevik to set up pay moderation team (Dagens Næringsliv)

The creation of a separate pay moderation team to achieve more moderate wage rises in 2003 is one of the measures that Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has proposed to the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and other union and employer organizations. The struggle to establish a new collaborative effort to hold down wages is now well underway. Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the LO, has challenged the PM and other leaders to freeze their own wages, while the NHO’s chief executive wants Central Bank Governor Svein Gjedrem to take on the role of wages policeman. Mr Bondevik is probably not very happy about these proposals, since they could disturb his own efforts to establish a new broad-based wages agreement. Mr Bondevik has held one summit with the leaders of the major union and employers’ organizations, and a new round of talks has been announced for 3 October – right after the 2003 national budget has been published.

Get ready for trouble (Dagbladet)

A dramatic rise in public expenditure amounting to NOK 20-25 billion has forced the Government to make deep cuts in next year’s national budget. On the whole it is only the poor in Norway and the Third World who will benefit from the budget – most other people will be hard hit. The Government is doing everything in its power to avoid a further rise in interest rates. This autumn’s budget battle will probably be the toughest Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has ever experienced. Christian Democrat mayors are already seething about local government decay, and the situation will get worse. "We will not be allocating as much money for tax cuts next year. The most important thing with this budget is to show that we can manage the economy. We must lower the pressure on interest rates and safeguard jobs. This is the acid test of the Government’s mettle, and achieving that is more important than any other individual budget item. But there will undoubtedly be trouble in the Storting," said Mr Bondevik.

Telenor’s new head office too big (Aftenposten)

Quite without meaning to, Telenor looks like becoming a serious competitor to IT Fornebu. The telecommunications company’s brand new head office complex is too big, and now has office space equal to four football stadiums to spare. Telenor has brought together almost 6,500 employees at its hypermodern new head office complex at Fornebu, measuring some 137,000 square metres. But when the original plans were laid, it was predicted that a further 1,000 employees would be working there. For this reason Telenor already has more space than it needs at Fornebu. And when the company’s current, tough cost-cutting programme, Delta 4, is completed in a couple of years, there will probably be even fewer Telenor employees – and even more vacant space at Fornebu.

Hanssen could be sacrificed (Dagbladet)

Leading women in Bjarne Håkon Hanssen’s branch of the Labour Party are willing to sacrifice him as a candidate for the party’s deputy leadership at a meeting on Friday. They feel there is now only one solution to the Labour Party’s deputy leadership battle. After the Labour women’s movement decided at the weekend that it did not want its leader to become a member of the party’s leadership team, MP Aud Gaundal from Mr Hanssen’s North Trøndelag County branch has now made up her mind. "The resolution means the leadership team will consist of four people, and in that case I think it would be impossible to elect a man." However, she does not think that Karita Bekkemellem Orheim is now the only real candidate. "Personally I would prefer a woman who was not part of Labour’s parliamentary group," said Ms Gaundal.

Free travel scandal to be handled in Storting (Verdens Gang)

VG’s revelations that the wife of Auditor General Bjarne Mørk Eidem had accompanied her husband on trips at public expense will be discussed at the first meeting of the Storting’s Presidium in two days’ time. Ågot Valla (Socialist Left Party), president of the Odelsting and chairman of the Storting’s Scrutiny and Constitutional Affairs Committee, says that the affair has a direct impact on public confidence in government. "The Office of the Auditor General plays a policing role, and is therefore in a special position. It has been documented that the Auditor General has exercised extremely poor judgement in this matter." Ms Valla will call for a tightening up of the rules covering trips on which public officials are accompanied by their spouses or partners.

Frontline shares continue to tumble (Aftenposten)

Frontline shares are plummeting. The market has not been reassured by the fact that revenues from large tankers have substantially improved in the past week. The share price of the world’s largest tank ship line fell yesterday by 10.61 per cent to NOK 29.50. Just over a year ago the share reached a peak of NOK 220, giving the shipping line a market capitalization of almost NOK 17 billion. This has now dropped to a measly NOK 2.3 billion.

Jagland calls for National Insurance Fund carve up (Nationen)

Thorbjørn Jagland wants to regionalize central government and decentralize the National Insurance Fund, but has no specific proposals for how this can be achieved in practice. During his address to a seminar on innovation staged by the Norwegian data and telecommunications industry, Labour leader Thorbjørn Jagland spoke about the importance of creating networks in order to keep up with technological developments. In what was perhaps Mr Jagland’s last major speech as party leader, he proposed the decentralization of the National Insurance Fund as part of efforts to transfer central government tasks to the regional level.

Worth Noting

• Professor Eyvind Smith has rebuked Auditor General Bjarne Mørk Eidem for taking his wife along on official trips paid for by the Office of the Auditor General. Professor Smith says the Office of the Auditor General must immediately stop paying the travel expenses of spouses or partners, or establish a set of rules to cover such contingencies. "The simple fact is that the Office of the Auditor General must be above suspicion," said professor Smith.
  (Aftenposten)
• Storebrand’s shareholders have lost NOK 7 billion since the merger with Den norske Bank (DnB) came to grief this summer. Together Christen Sveaas, Stein Erik Hagen and Johan H. Andresen Jr have accumulated realized and unrealized losses of over NOK 1 billion since the merger was called off.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Illegally imported, methanol-contaminated alcohol claimed another life on Tuesday morning. A 52-year-old man from Askim died at the Østfold Hospital in Fredrikstad as a result of methanol poisoning. The man is probably the fourth person to die after drinking methanol-contaminated spirits in recent days.
  (Aftenposten)
• Oslo Sporveier, which operates the capital’s underground rail network and tramways, looks like ending the year with accumulated losses of NOK 150-200 million. Dramatic cuts in services have been proposed for next year. Unless Oslo Sporveier receives extra cash it could mean underground trains and trams ceasing to run half an hour earlier at night, discontinued bus routes and a rise in fares.
  (Dagsavisen)
• In 56 local authorities sheep flocks must be fed a special diet for up to eight weeks due to high levels of radioactive contamination. Not since 1998 have such measures been implemented in so many local authority areas.
  (Nationen)
• Mr and Mrs Norwegian have never had such a high level of private consumption. Each of us spends on average 31 per cent more than we did 10 years ago. In its report "Ecological Outlook 2002", environmental campaigners from The Future in Our Hands have investigated the ecological consequences of Norway’s economic development in the past year.
  (Vårt Land)
• The number of Norwegian women being sterilized has dropped because the operation is too expensive. Figures from chief county medical officers show that the number of women being sterilized fell by 64 per cent during the first half of the year. The result could be a rise in the abortion rate.
  (Dagsavisen)
• Trond Waage, the Commissioner for Children, wants anti-smoking legislation to apply in your home and in your car. He says that parents’ smoking is killing children. In a letter to Health Minister Dagfinn Høybråten, Mr Waage attacks the Minister for not going far enough in the battle against smoking.
  (Verdens Gang)

Today’s comment from Dagens Næringsliv

The Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) wants Central Bank Governor Svein Gjedrem to double as wages police chief during the annual round of pay negotiations. The NHO proposal would mean that before employers and unions sit down at the negotiating table, Mr Gjedrem is supposed to tell them how large the pay rises can be before he puts the squeeze by raising interest rates. The NHO has been up this garden path before. The organization wants responsibility for the country’s substantial wage inflation to be Someone Else’s Problem. Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), has a good point when she says that the NHO blames uncontrollable market forces when executive pay rises indecently fast. Now NHO chief executive Finn Bergesen Jr says that Svein Gjedrem will be able to rein in the labour market with a few magic words. In the real world pay levels are determined by supply and demand, the relative strength of the two sides and political decisions - the most important factors being supply and demand. At the moment we have low unemployment and a Norwegian economy lubricated by oil revenues. Wage rises are therefore large. And so it will continue until some crisis or other starts to bite, or the politicians change the framework conditions under which business operates. And another thing – should Mr Gjedrem come down from Mt Sinai only every second year for the ordinary wage negotiations? Or every year? Or perhaps twice a year before the central and local negotiations? And before the Storting debates the Government’s budget proposal? But then, why do we even need a Storting when we’ve got Svein Gjedrem?