The Royal Ministry Of Foreign Affairs,
Oslo Press Division

Norway Daily No. 101/00

Date: 29 May 2000

ANGRY FARMERS TO MOUNT THE BARRICADES (Nationen)

Frustrated and angry farmers will start demonstrating today and they will keep it up until the Storting votes on the controversial agricultural settlement. They intend to block public offices all over the country and paralyze a number of major traffic arteries. The government’s latest offer was to reduce overall farm income cutbacks to NOK 200 million, but farmers do not consider this good enough to even negotiate.

NORWEGIAN YOUTH HAVE GONE SOFT (Aftenposten)

Half the soldiers sent to guard the Norwegian border in Finnmark are not tough enough to handle traditional military discipline. Nearly twice the number of troops that should have been necessary are sent to Sør-Varanger because so many fall away in the first few weeks of service. The King’s Guards must also struggle hard to find recruits who are physically and mentally qualified for service.

STATOIL PRIVATIZATION RAISING WAVES IN LABOUR (Vårt Land)

Internal conflict within the Labour Party over taking Statoil public escalated further this weekend as more county organizations spoke out against letting the executive committee decide the issue on its own. Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and the other party leaders may thus lose the showdown at today’s executive committee meeting. Ten out of nineteen county organizations now take the view that the issue should be decided at the national convention in November.

STARVING IN THE MIDST OF PLENTY (Dagbladet)

Shortages in the health care sector are overwhelming, yet our national money bin is full to bursting. This is hard to accept. The fiscal surplus will be NOK 150 billion this year, yet hospitals must close wards because they lack the funds and the personnel to keep them open, says Trygve Hegnar, editor-in-chief of Kapital, a finance monthly. He is supported for the most part by Prof. Steinar Strøm, Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg’s old social economics professor at the University of Oslo.

LABOUR AGAINST THE ENVIRONMENTAL STREAM (Dagsavisen-Saturday)

The entire opposition is attempting to humble Jens Stoltenberg and the Labour Party in a new environmental controversy building up over the development of the Beiarn river in Nordland. The Government wants to enclose the river in pipelines, but the opposition objects, and demands new impact studies. Earlier this month, the Government confirmed the concession granted to the State Power System (Statkraft) in 1979, but there is a great deal of concern about the fate of the salmon stocks in this river. The opposition takes the view that the impact report from 1979 is outdated and that a number of environmental impact issues must be re-examined.

STATOIL MAY HAVE STRUCK OIL (Aftenposten-Sunday)

Statoil and its foreign partners may have discovered the biggest oil deposit in the world beneath the Caspian Sea. At today’s oil prices and dollar exchange rate, Statoil’s share could be worth somewhere between NOK 260 and 390 billion. The Kashagan field off the coast of Kazakhstan may contain 20 to 30 million barrels of oil. Only one well has been drilled so far.

BRITISH BID FOR IF (Dagens Næringsliv)

Royal & Sun Alliance, a British insurance company, would like to buy If, and is thinking of making an offer of nearly NOK 14 billion. Royal & Sun Alliance already owns Codan, a Danish insurer. Storebrand owns a 44 per cent stake in If, and Skandia, a Swedish concern, owns the rest. Storebrand does not wish to comment.

WORTH NOTING

• Full chaos and bitter strife now reign in the Labour Party, where the inflamed Statoil issue is the topic of the day. The documents of the matter are the current bone of contention, together with the timing of their circulation. (Verdens Gang-Sunday)
• Labour’s national committee adopted a statement in February in favour of selling up to one-third of the government’s Statoil holdings and distributing the State Direct Financial Interest (SDFI) between Statoil and Norsk Hydro. (Dagsavisen-Sunday)
• A little under 40 per cent of those polled in a recent survey feel relations between the Church of Norway and the state should remain as they now are. 20 per cent favoured separation of church and state. (Aftenposten-Saturday)
• Zero bank charges and high interest rates on savings is what is on offer by Svenske Skandia, a Swedish Internet bank which sees this as the future of banking. None of the established banks intend to lower prices or raise interest on deposits in order to prevent customers from defecting. (Aftenposten)
• Official procurement will soon take place on the Internet, and one of the biggest electronic marketplaces in Norway is scheduled to open a year from now. National and local governments buy approximately NOK 210 billion worth of goods and services every year, but not all of this is suitable for transacting via the Internet. (Aftenposten)
• Most people, firms and public offices are alarmingly careless with personal ID numbers and other sensitive personal information, according to the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime (Økokrim) and the Data Inspectorate. A recent trend in international crime is to obtain personal data about people and then assume their identity. (Dagsavisen)
• North Sea oil was sold at NOK 275 per barrel yesterday, the highest since the outbreak of the Gulf War. Industry observers believe OPEC will step up oil production. (Dagens Næringsliv-Saturday)
• The Labour Government is moving to reform and partially privatize the highway sector, as well as rail cargo traffic and parts of the Public Roads Administration. These public transport measures are part of the National Transport Plan 2001-2011 to be presented in September. (Verdens Gang-Saturday)
• Large dividends produced by power companies, which in Norway are largely municipally-owned, are a life-giving wellspring of funds for impoverished local governments. Of NOK 3.5 to 4 billion paid out in dividends and interest on subordinated debt, most went to municipalities. (Dagens Næringsliv)

TODAY’S COMMENT from Dagsavisen (Saturday)

The public sector negotiations were unexpectedly successful. The parties in the state sector reached full accord, and despite strikes in a few important areas such as day-care and pre-school services, the municipal settlement may also be said to have gone fairly well. The unions in the public sector should be grateful to their private sector counterparts, who won substantial improvements for their members through large-scale striking. Teachers made the greatest gains this time around, and now that they have won their most important demands, it would could well be said that we are all winners. This settlement will help assure recruitment to the teaching profession, whose role is of fundamental importance to our society.