New alliance under construction (Dagsavisen)

Party leaders Kristin Halvorsen (Socialist Left Party), Odd Roger Enoksen (Centre Party) and Jens Stoltenberg (Labour Party) are now talking about what could be a historic alliance between the three parties. They will campaign for a majority coalition or a government with the backing of a parliamentary majority at the next general election in 2005. The parties’ mutual collaboration will be strengthened, and the three are prepared to take office sooner if the Christian Democratic Party is willing. This autumn the three party leaders have held a series of talks on how to put together a viable centre-left alternative. They have had frequent bilateral meetings, but all three have not yet come together to hammer out a strategy. The three are at pains to underline that it is early days and much has yet to be clarified.

Support for continued LO-Labour collaboration (Aftenposten)

Many people have spoken out in favour of a divorce between the Labour Party and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO). But during the conference of civil service unions belonging to the LO yesterday, there was warm support for a continued alliance. Delegate after delegate took the podium to extol the virtues of close relations between the LO and the Labour Party. "I feel that there is increased understanding of the need for cooperation. So I say to you, I am ready to cooperate," said Jens Stoltenberg at the start of his address. He then went on to reel off a long list of political issues as evidence of the need for cooperation. Mr Stoltenberg is himself a member of the Norwegian Civil Service Union (NTL).

Socialist Left Party voters moving from no to maybe on EU membership (Nationen)

Opposition to EU membership is declining in the Socialist Left Party, previously a bastion of anti-EU feeling. Only six out of ten Socialist Left Party voters now definitely reject EU membership. In the rest of the population, too, support for membership is growing – as is the number of people who have an open mind on the issue. Opposition is declining. When Sentio-Norsk Statistikk tested public feeling on the issue for the newspapers, Nationen, Dagen and Klassekampen, early this autumn, the two sides were separated by no more than a few decimal points. There are still only 1.7 percentage points separating a yes from a no, but the trend seems to be moving slowly but surely in favour of EU membership. An analysis of the underlying material shows that opposition to EU membership is declining throughout the country.

Borrowing bonanza worries Gjedrem (Aftenposten)

More and more people are getting over their heads in debt, and Svein Gjedrem, Governor of the Norwegian Central Bank, is worried. Yesterday, Mr Gjedrem presented his half-yearly report, entitled ‘Financial Stability’. "People are taking bigger risks and borrowing more than they have previously done. People with low to middle incomes are borrowing most. A large number of people are walking a tightrope when it comes to debt," he said. The purchase of one in three new homes is financed by a mortgage amounting to 80 per cent or more of the property’s value. Mr Gjedrem puts people’s greater willingness to take risks down to a belief that house prices will continue to rise. And he has not found any statistical evidence that a change of heart is underway.

Stoltenberg has cost the country NOK 112 billion (Dagens Næringsliv)

Norway has lost NOK 112 billion as a result of Jens Stoltenberg’s 1997 proposal to invest part of the Government Petroleum Fund in shares instead of putting it all in the bond market. On 13 May 1997, the then Minister of Finance, now leader of the Labour Party, Jens Stoltenberg, announced his revised national budget. At the same time he proposed changing the Petroleum Fund’s investment guidelines so that 30-50 per cent of its funds could be invested in shares. "Those people who oppose investing in shares must take responsibility for the value of the Fund becoming significantly weaker," he said. The proposal won a parliamentary majority, and the Petroleum Fund bought its first shares in January 1998. If the Fund had not entered the stock market in 1998, but had continued to invest in bonds, it would be worth NOK 716 billion today. At the end of the third quarter this year the Fund was worth NOK 604 billion.

Christian values no longer rule supreme (Vårt Land)

Of those who make up the country’s power elite, only church leaders want Christian values to have a greater impact on the shaping of society. Leading figures in the realms of culture, science, the public service and the media want to reduce the role of Christian values. Nor do business and political leaders have any strong desire to increase the role played by Christian values compared to today. In fact these two groups would prefer to see the influence of Christian values on society weakened somewhat. This is the conclusion of a survey of the country’s power elite carried out by the research project Power and Democracy 1998-2003.

Electricity prices smash all records (Dagbladet)

Do you think the price of electricity is already off the scale? Just wait – the market price is set to rise by another 25 per cent before the winter is over, and could reach levels never seen before. There is now less water in the country’s hydro-electric reservoirs than in drought-hit 1996, when record levels of electricity imports were necessary to meet Norway’s power requirement. The situation has now become so serious that the Norwegian Water Resources and Energy Administration (NVE) has set up a separate website with continual updates on developments. So far no one has mentioned the word ‘rationing’, but the NVE’s website says that "a considerable reduction in consumption" could be needed.

Majority for Government proposal allowing more overtime (Aftenposten)

Despite strong union protest, the Government and the Progress Party will together ensure a parliamentary majority in favour of relaxing the restrictions on overtime. The Labour Party, Socialist Left Party and Centre Party see the relaxation as an attack on workers’ rights to decent working hours. In an annotation to the recommendation published by the Storting’s Local Government Committee yesterday afternoon, these three parties say that employees are the weaker party. In the recommendation, which will be adopted by the Storting, the Government proposes lifting current legal restrictions on the amount of overtime permitted in one week and four consecutive weeks. In future it will be possible for employers to reach an agreement with the individual employee on overtime up to a maximum of 400 hours a year.

1. Worth Noting

• Norway’s efforts during the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg prevented a disastrous setback for international environmental protection, according to Klaus Töpfer, the UN’s Under-Secretary-General and head of UNEP. He says that Norway has been at the forefront on environmental issues for the 30 years the Ministry of the Environment has existed.
  (Aftenposten)
• Thousands of asylum seekers have fled from state-run refugee reception centres because those whose applications have been rejected are now being sent home more quickly. At the end of October 4,900 people had disappeared, compared with 3,000 last year.
  (Nationen)
• The government is being pressured into paying the additional cash benefit for children under three to parents of Norwegian children resident abroad. If the Government does not, the EFTA Surveillance Authority (ESA) has threatened to initiate legal proceedings. The ESA has sent a letter to the Norwegian authorities stating that Norway’s current practice of refusing to pay the cash benefit to families resident in EFTA and EU countries violates the EEA Agreement. The Government now has three months in which to change its practice.
  (Aftenposten)
• A number of defectors from the environmental foundation, Bellona, are to set up a rival organization called Zero. Over the past few years Bellona has become increasingly controversial within the environmental movement because of its dependence on industry. Unlike Bellona, the newly formed organization, Zero, will not accept commissions from the corporate world.
  (Klassekampen)
• The Norwegian Competition Authority has ordered a temporary halt to the merger between Color Line and Fjord Line. Color Line’s major shareholder, Olav Nils Sunde, has also been barred from exercising his shareholder’s rights in the Bergen-based ferry company, Fjord Line. Mr Sunde has lodged an appeal against the decision.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Gunnar Andersen, Follo county’s senior food inspector, does not believe that supermarket meat counters elsewhere in the country are any better than in the stores he has been forced to close in the past few weeks. "If other supermarkets were inspected in the same way we have done, you would find exactly the same thing. What we have uncovered is just the tip of the iceberg," he said.
  (Nationen)

2. Today’s comment from Dagbladet

The Ministry of the Environment is celebrating its 30th anniversary, and has every reason to pat itself on the back. Norway was a pioneer when Olav Gjærevoll was appointed as our first Minister of the Environment, and many people were sceptical about the new-fangled institution. Over the years Environment Ministers have fought tooth and nail against colleagues responsible for the country’s industry, oil and finances. Nor have local politicians and business people been among the Environment Minister’s closest friends. But despite individual defeats, like the construction of the hydro-electric power station at Alta in the 1980s and the more recent go-ahead for the construction of gas-fired power stations, environmental issues have won the day on a broad scale. Environmental considerations are now included as a natural part of any planning exercise, and both industry and the public services are subject to strict environmental standards. We can see the results of this both in our everyday lives and out in the countryside. New areas are now waiting to be protected. Not everything is as it should be. Among other things, our emissions of greenhouse gases are far too high. Nevertheless, what the Ministry has accomplished, under the aegis of Ministers of varying political persuasions, is a formidable achievement – one which we are all beneficiaries of.