World’s worst trade-off – EU demand billions for free-trade in fish (Dagbladet)

In 2002 Norway exported seafood to the tune of NOK 1.3 billion to the EU’s new member countries. Now the EU is demanding that Norway pays up to NOK 4 billion for the privilege of continuing to do so. The new EEA Agreement could therefore prove to be extremely costly for Norway. And worst of all, the GATT agreement means that Norway could simply choose to ignore the EU’s demands for import duty. But Norway will probably not dare to play the World Trade Organization (WTO) card in a difficult negotiating process with the EU.

Electricity rationing cannot be ruled out (Dagbladet)

The electricity supply situation in Norway is now so critical that the Norwegian people have two choices: save huge amounts of electricity or let the authorities resort to blackouts in an effort to ration power. "The situation is extremely difficult and has got worse. We are not in a crisis today, but we could very quickly get to that stage. And at that point we cannot rule out the introduction of electricity rationing," said Agnar Aas, head of the Norwegian Water Resource and Energy Administration (NVE).

Girls best in all subjects (Aftenposten)

Yesterday, for the first time ever, the Norwegian Board of Education published the final grades in all subjects achieved by final-year pupils in the country’s lower secondary schools. The most alarming factor to emerge was the huge gulf in achievement between boys and girls – a gap which seems to be getting steadily wider. Girls achieved better grades in 10 of the 11 subjects for which marks are awarded. Physical education was the only exception to the rule. "This is very worrying, and is something which makes Norway stand out in an extremely negative way in international surveys," said Education Minister Kristin Clemet.

State support for both smokers and tobacco companies (Dagsavisen)

Over NOK 50 million a year is spent on efforts to combat smoking, and the latest campaign alone will cost NOK 10 million. At the same time the state is pumping hundred of millions of kroner into the companies which give us the opportunity to fill our lungs with tar – the tobacco companies. "The whole thing rings rather hollow. Health Minister Dagfinn Høybråten should ensure that the Government invests our money somewhere else," said Finn Grønseth, Secretary General of the Norwegian Heart and Lung Association (LHL).

Criminal bankrupts walk free (Aftenposten)

Eight out of ten bankruptcies are not investigated by the court-appointed liquidator because there is no money left in the bankrupt company’s accounts. A new bankruptcy law should ensure a more thorough treatment of such cases. "It is damaging to people’s respect for the law when individuals can continually run companies into the ground, declare them bankrupt and then start up again, knowing they will not be discovered and that they can siphon off company funds unpunished," said Eva Joly, special advisor to the Justice Ministry.

Åslaug Haga set to become new leader of Centre Party (Verdens Gang)

Åslaug Haga will most probably take over as leader of the Centre Party at its annual conference in March. This means that Odd Roger Enoksen does not have sufficient support to be re-elected as Centre Party chairman. Many of those who wish to see Ms Haga take over as chairwoman would also like Marit Arnstad to become the leader of party’s parliamentary group.

"Taliban-style" anti-smoking campaign (Dagbladet)

Professor Per Fugelli, himself a non-smoker, has condemned the health authorities’ latest anti-smoking campaign, which shows grotesque pictures of growing cancer tumours and cross-sections of diseased lungs. He believes the campaign itself could make people ill. "This campaign – fanatical as it is – could actually have the opposite effect. It has a Taliban feel to it. The campaign does not demonstrate the kind of compassion which should characterize health-related information. Instead it is puritanical and paternalistic, and uses effects which have strayed far into the realms of fanaticism," said professor Fugelli.

Oslo as polluted as Mexico City (Aftenposten)

The cold has put a lid on the Oslo basin. In the past few days the air quality in Oslo has been as bad as in such populous cities as Mexico City and Cairo. Yesterday, air pollution experts warned people suffering from asthma and other lung diseases to stay indoors. Not since measurements began in the mid-80s has the concentration of nitrogen dioxide been as high as it is now. "On Tuesday and Wednesday the level of pollution was as high as that we find in cities such as Cairo and Mexico City," said Bjarne Sivertsen, a scientist with the Norwegian Institute for Air Research (NILU).

Worth Noting

• According to Kjell Bjørndalen, president of the Norwegian United Federation of Trade Unions, the crisis in the country’s industrial sector is now so severe that dramatic counter-measures are required. We should therefore devalue the NOK to make Norwegian industrial goods cheaper abroad, he said.
  (Dagsavisen)
• Health Minister Dagfinn Høybråten believes women and men are treated differently by the Norwegian health service, and wants an end to the discrimination. "I want the health service to treat women in a more equal way than they do now," he said.
  (Dagbladet)
• Insurance companies have reached out-of-court settlements with several victims of road traffic accidents after Katrine Bråtane won her case in the Supreme Court last year. Despite denials by the insurance companies that the ruling would create a precedent, in the past month several out-of-court settlements have been reached with claimants who have been permanently injured as a result of road traffic accidents.
  (Dagbladet)
• Men, too, suffer from post-natal depression, according to a recent survey from Denmark. Not only that, those men are hit harder than women who experience from such depression. The men affected suffer from sleep problems, stomach pains, feelings of guilt, as well as nausea. They also have difficulty concentrating, for example when reading a newspaper. The study reveals that post-natal depression can last from one month to several years, and in certain cases can lead to repeated bouts of despair.
  (Verdens Gang)
• We are drinking more than ever before. Last year alone Norwegian consumers drank wines and spirits worth a mind-boggling NOK 9 billion. Sales of spirits alone rose by ten per cent. According to the state-run wine and spirits retail monopoly, Vinmonopolet, this increase is in large measure due to the fact that the Government reduced the levy on spirits last year. In addition, the deaths of several people after drinking smuggled, methanol-contaminated spirits, has also contributed to the surge in sales of spirits from Vinmonopolet.
  (Dagsavisen)
• Radio-active bird droppings are threatening life in the Arctic. Droppings from birds which have eaten contaminated fish and shellfish means that radio-active material builds up on land, according to a study carried out by the Norwegian Radiation Protection Authority.
  (Dagsavisen)
• Earlier, 10 per cent of all girls under the age of 18 in Halden became pregnant. Half of them chose to have an abortion. But since the introduction of a computerized baby – a doll which cries, wets itself and demands food – into the school curriculum, not one single girl from Strupe lower secondary school has become pregnant. One week coping with the "cry-baby" puts them off, at least from an unwanted teenage pregnancy. But the study also shows that pupils – in the longer term – now want to have more children than they did before they were given responsibility for the computerized baby.
  (Verdens Gang)

Today’s comment from Dagbladet

Negotiations start today on a renewal of the EEA Agreement between what remains of EFTA – Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein – sitting at the short end of the table, and the Super-EU, which in two years’ time will comprise 25 countries and 475 million inhabitants, taking up the long side. They are a hundred times as numerous as we are. The EEA Agreement is therefore of marginal interest for the Union, which now includes almost the whole of Europe. On a day-to-day level this is apparent in the fact that none of the EU countries’ ministers participate in the EEA Committee. As a rule the Foreign Ministers of Norway, Iceland and Liechtenstein turn up and talk with the European Union’s paid officials. That the EEA negotiations are happening at all is due firstly to the fact that Iceland and Norway are together the dominant players in the important northern fishing grounds, to which EU fishermen are keen to gain greater access. Secondly, Norway is a substantial supplier of energy to the EU. Moreover, as a matter of principle, the EU is interested in reducing the protection afforded to the Norwegian agricultural sector. The negotiations are going to be tough. Among other things, Norway wants continued duty-free access to such major markets as Poland for its fish products, when these countries join the EU. At the same time, the Norwegian negotiators want to limit as far as possible the EU fishermen’s access to Norwegian fishing quotas, which Norwegian fishermen have long felt were too small already. The negotiations will very quickly become extremely technical and complicated. The mass of details will seem like a smokescreen for everyone but the experts themselves. But there is good reason to hope and believe that a reasonable result will be forthcoming. Despite the difference in size, the EU is also interested in maintaining good relations with those non-members located in the far north. The EEA Agreement is, in many ways, an unsatisfactory contract under which Norway, in exchange for vital access to EU markets, imports most of the EU’s directives, without having the opportunity to influence their development. Nevertheless, it is decidedly better than having no agreement at all. Norway’s oil and gas revenues make us a rich country, and we must be prepared for a manyfold increase in today’s NOK 200 million contribution to the economies of the weakest areas in the EU.