LABOUR GETTING NO HELP FROM OTHERS (Dagsavisen)

None of the other parties are willing to join Labour in putting together a budget. The Conservatives helped Labour topple the previous centrist Government, but say it is up to the political centre to help Labour with the budget. The centrist parties, for their part, say the Conservatives put Labour in power, so they share the ruling party’s responsibility for the budget. Two weeks before it is to be presented, parts of the budget are already known. Tax on dividends, a VAT reduction on meat, lower excise taxes on alcohol, motor vehicle fuel and electricity, more PCs in the schoolrooms, additional procurements of hospital equipment from foreign sources, and an increase in foreign aid are among the likely proposals.

HIGHER TAXES IN STORE (Verdens Gang)

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg needs to increase revenues to the national treasury in order to balance the 2001 budget, and the impending dividends tax is probably only part of a larger schedule of tax measures. With next year’s elections on everyone’s mind, the ruling Labour Party is likely to give the budget a profile designed to appeal to potential Labour voters, which usually spells bad luck for people with high incomes and liberal spending habits.

LABOUR GOVERNMENT YIELDS TO EU DEMANDS (Aftenposten)

Norway has promised to give the EU an account later on this autumn of what it is doing about the gas directive and the food additives directive. Chris Patten, EU commissioner in charge of foreign relations, fired off a broadside against the EFTA/EEA countries, including Norway’s failure to incorporate EU directives into Norwegian law. Thirty pieces of EU legislation are involved, most of them related to the politically sensitive directives on food additives, biotechnology patents, and gas. The Labour Government will be able to get the Storting to accept these controversial directives, as neither the Conservatives nor the Progress Party see any reason not to.

PRO-EU SENTIMENT ON THE DECLINE IN NORWAY (Aftenposten)

EU supporters may still be ahead in Opinion’s EU barometer for September, but their lead has shrunk substantially in the past six months. Around 52 per cent of those who have made up their minds on EU membership say they would vote in favour of joining the EU. This figure is down from 56 per cent in April. Opposition to EU membership is somewhat stronger and support correspondingly weaker since Labour formed a new Government last March. "These figures will have to get much worse before I start worrying," says State Secretary Espen Barth Eide of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, however.

CLIMBING INTEREST RATES HIT HARD (Dagsavisen)

Interest rate hikes so far this year have cost Norwegian households at least NOK 2 billion, and next year the cost will be NOK 10 billion. A 0.5 per cent interest rate hike means an additional NOK 5,000 in annual interest on a one million kroner mortgage.

REPORT CALLS RECOMMENDS SHIP AND RAIL TRANSPORT (Klassekampen)

Most Norwegian fish exports are trucked to the continent. A recent report from Vestlandsforskning, a research institute, establishes that rail transport is not only more environmentally friendly, it can also get the cargo there faster. According to the report, shipping stockfish to Italy by train would take 75 per cent less energy, but diesel would have to be much more expensive before any major shift from road to rail transport will take place.

WORTH NOTING

• Twenty years from now, each Norwegian will travel nearly 1,000 km more in one year than he or she does at present, and well over 90 per cent of this increase will take place by car. Public transport will stagnate if the authorities do nothing to give it a boost. (Dagsavisen)
• "There is nothing wrong with looking at opinion polls as long as you don’t become obsessed with them and lose faith in the possibility of changing them," said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg yesterday at an open meeting of the Oslo Labour Party. (Aftenposten)
• Former Christian Democratic Party chairman Kåre Kristiansen is not like other Christian Democrats. He takes the view that Kjell Magne Bondevik should approach Carl I. Hagen to explore the possibility of forming a coalition. (Nationen)
• As the Progress Party reaches new heights in the opinion polls, the temperature of its internal disputes is doing the same. At issue is the degree to which national party leaders should meddle with county-level nominations for next year’s general elections. (Dagbladet)
• One out of every four Norwegians suffers from allergies, and half of this group feels their allergies reduce their quality of life appreciably. The Norwegian Asthma and Allergy Association now demands more government funding to find out why allergies are affecting a growing number of people. (Nationen)
• Major shareholder Christian Sveaas believes Orkla’s anonymous shareholder, whom he previously thought was Kjell Inge Røkke, has struck again. Two weeks ago, someone acquired shares underpriced at around NOK 300 million through two options contracts. Yesterday, these options contracts were replaced with two new contracts at nearly the same low price, while quotations for the same shares rose sharply. The overall gain on these transactions was NOK 300 million. (Aftenposten)
• Christian Sveaas already knows which Orkla subsidiaries he wants the group to get rid of. The employees do not feel secure with Mr. Sveaas, and want the Government to step in. (Dagens Næringsliv)
• Fundraising costs in Norway are no longer to be kept secret. The industry’s own supervisory body urges fundraisers to show more openness and honesty. (Vårt Land)

TODAY’S COMMENT from Dagbladet

Students cheat the State Educational Loan Fund out of NOK 40 million every year by filing under a different address when they are actually living at home with their parents. The widespread nature of this practice indicates that many students care little about what is right. Higher education is supposed to inculcate responsibility and awareness, but the fact that such a high number of students engage in outright fraud indicates that the schooling and upbringing of these students has been in vain. Student spokesmen retort that it is the Educational Loan Fund’s own fault that students cheat. However, blaming the victim for the theft can only be called some new variety of postmodern morality. Granted that Norway’s academic financing programmes could be better and that student grants are too small, there is still no justification for blatant fraud.

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