IMMIGRANTS MUST LEARN NORWEGIAN (Dagsavisen/Saturday)

If Education Minister Trond Giske has his way, immigrants will have to complete a compulsory course of Norwegian language instruction. Mr Giske wants an end to immigrants themselves deciding whether to accept the offer of Norwegian language classes. A large number of immigrant women do not learn Norwegian. "A working knowledge of Norwegian is extremely important if they are to follow up their children properly," says Mr Giske.

THREE TIMES AS MANY DEPORTED (Dagsavisen)

More than 600 immigrants convicted of various crimes will have been deported from Norway by the end of the year. That is three times as many as four years ago. The Norwegian authorities do not believe that deporting convicted foreigners constitutes an additional punishment over and above any prison term the individual may have served.

SPENDING IN SWEDEN UP 45% (Aftenposten/Saturday)

This year Norwegians will spend around NOK 10 billion in Sweden, an increase of 45 per cent compared to last year. And if we are to believe the Federation of Norwegian Commercial and Service Enterprises (HSH), our spending spree in Sweden looks set to continue. A reduction in VAT is not enough to stop Norwegians’ cross-border shopping, not least because we have discovered that it is not only food which is cheaper in Sweden. For example, you can have your car serviced in Sweden for around a quarter of the price that it would cost in Norway.

PROGRESS PARTY’S HIGH-SPEED PURGE (Aftenposten/Sunday)

Several key Progress Party politicians will be expelled from the party next Sunday, and a number of others are being suspended from their elected positions within the party. The reason for this haste is that Progress Party chairman Carl I. Hagen and the executive committee want to ensure that key individuals have lost their positions before the party’s Oslo branch holds its extraordinary general meeting 12 December. Disciplinary proceedings have been instigated against a total of 16 party members.

LABOUR TO RESTRICT CASH BENEFIT FOR UNDER-THREES (Dagens Næringsliv)

Children and Family Affairs Minister Karita Bekkemellom Orheim has not given up the fight against the additional cash benefit for children under three that was introduced by the previous government. She is planning to publish a review of the scheme before Easter next year, and at that point additional cash payments to families with children under three may be restricted to those who stay at home to look after them themselves. Today the cash benefit is granted for children between 1 and 3 years of age who are resident in Norway and who do not have a place, or only have a part-time place, at a day-care centre which receives state operating support – irrespective of whether one of the parents is looking after them full-time or not.

WAITING FOR SOCIALIST LEFT PARTY AND CHRISTIAN DEMOCRATS (Nationen)

Supporters of EU membership are waiting for the Socialist Left Party and the Christian Democrats to see the EU light. But according to the latest EU poll, Kristin Halvorsen and Kjell Magne Bondevik’s voters are hesitant. In November a total of 51.9 per cent said no to membership, while supporters are way down at 38.8 per cent. This nevertheless represents an increase of 3.9 percentage points, while opponents of membership fell back 4.6 percentage points.

"I’LL BE BACK" (Dagbladet/Saturday)

While the National Authority for Investigation and Prosecution of Economic and Environmental Crime is continuing its investigations, fired Storebrand boss Åge Korsvold has begun to look to the future. "Of course I think it is serious that the Banking, Insurance and Securities Commission has found sufficient grounds to send the case for police investigation. But I’m not taking it too much to heart. I know what happened and still say that I have broken no laws. I’ll be back. Only time will tell what position I will be working from, but it will not be as chief executive of a major corporation," says Mr Korsvold.

WORTH NOTING

1. The Socialist Left Party wants more influence in Norwegian politics and is ready to negotiate with most of the other parties in the Storting to find support for its most important policies. (Dagsavisen/Sunday)
2. According to calculations made by the Conservatives the bill for two years of budget compromises between the Labour Party and the centre alliance parties amounts to a tax increase of NOK 1,505 for an ordinary family. (Verdens Gang)
3. Members of the Progress Party’s Oslo branch are extremely angry. A large number of them may vote against both the party’s chairman Carl I. Hagen and its deputy chairman Siv Jensen when the Oslo branch selects its list of parliamentary candidates at a selection meeting 27 January. (Dagbladet)
4. Norway’s Environment Minister Siri Bjerke will be putting pressure on the world’s environment ministers to meet in Bonn in May next year to salvage the Kyoto Agreement. (Verdens Gang/Sunday)
5. Orkla chief executive Jens P. Heyerdahl’s fate may be sealed at a board meeting on Wednesday. Yesterday company chairman Finn A. Hvistendahl received some of the findings of the investigative committee. The rest of the report, which may lead to Mr Heyerdahl’s removal from office, will be finished next week – perhaps as early as Monday. (Aftenposten/Saturday)
6. After five years and NOK 1 billion the world’s longest road tunnel, the Lærdal Tunnel in the county of Sogn and Fjordene, is ready for its official opening today. The tunnel is 24.5 km long.
7. The rain is finally stopping. It won’t be completely dry in the south and eastern parts of the country in the next few days, but there will be considerably less rainfall than in the preceding weeks. However, the Norwegian Geotechnical Institute is warning of an increased risk of landslides. (Aftenposten)

TODAY’S COMMENT FROM DAGSAVISEN

The process Carl I. Hagen and his hand-picked supporters in the party’s executive committee have instigated to expel certain members of the Progress Party’s Oslo branch is unique in Norwegian political history. From time to time parties do split into factions. It has happened several times before in the Progress Party, but usually the divisions are due to strongly-held political opinions. Fortunately, it is rare for people to be thrown out of a party simply because the chairman does not like them. The process Mr Hagen has initiated against the leadership and other elected officers of the Oslo branch, the Progress Party’s largest and traditionally most important county organization, is cruel to those concerned, deeply undemocratic and, as a matter of principle, damaging to the entire party system and our parliamentary democracy. We do not agree with what the 16 persecuted members of the Progress Party’s Oslo branch stand for politically, but we defend their democratic right to engage in party politics. It was not Carl I. Hagen that elected them. They were elected by the citizens of Oslo. Mr Hagen’s process is grotesque, the accusations false. The accused are being given no chance to defend themselves. Mr Hagen has instituted a Stalinesque show-trial translated into Norwegian.

NOREG