The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo
Press Division

Norway Daily No. 233/00

Date: 4 December 2000

CROWN PRINCE ANNOUNCES ENGAGEMENT (All newspapers)

Crown Prince Haakon opened Friday’s press conference by announcing his engagement to Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby, with whom he is already living. The royal wedding will be held 25 August next year. "I understand that people are interested in my past, but I only hope that they will accept me for who I am today, and look to the future," said royal fiancée Mette-Marit Tjessem Høiby.

MONARCHY WEAKENED (Dagbladet)

The relationship between Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon provoked renewed debate over the monarchy. Since their relationship became public at the end of last year, the market research company MMI has carried out three opinion polls. The most recent was completed after Mette-Marit’s first public appearance on Friday, and the results show that 66 per cent of the population believe that the country should remain a monarchy compared to 75 per cent in September.

GOVERNMENT LOSES DRUGS WAR (Aftenposten)

Public funding for the fight against illegal drugs rose threefold during the 1990s. However, in a recently published report, a government committee on substance abuse maintains that the problem is still growing fast despite this rise in spending. Many more people are now addicted to heroin, which has become much cheaper. More than 600 of them have died of drug overdoses in the past three years. According to the committee the reason is "increased smuggling, illegal trafficking and a wider geographic spread of substance abuse in Norway, and a more liberal attitude to drugs among the young".

ALARMED BY EU EXPANSION (Dagsavisen/Saturday)

Foreign Minister Thorbjørn Jagland is worried that the EEA Agreement may lose its significance in an expanded EU. He is now asking the Storting for permission to begin preparing for Norwegian membership. Major political changes will occur in Europe over the next few years. "These changes are not covered by the EEA Agreement, which only regulates access to the European Single Market," said Mr Jagland, who presented the Government’s report on Europe yesterday.

DISAPPOINTED BY SUSPENSION (Dagsavisen)

Members of the Oslo branch of the Progress Party received the message they most feared last night. Those members facing expulsion have been suspended for up to 30 months, and are not allowed to hold office in the party. "I’m deeply disappointed," said Dag Danielsen, former chairman of the Oslo branch.

FEWER SHARES TO BE SOLD (Dagbladet/Sunday)

The sale of Telenor shares could be substantially reduced. Dagbladet has reason to believe that the company’s management and owners are considering selling fewer shares than planned, because of the luke-warm reception from investors. Originally Telenor had planned to sell some 372 million shares in connection with tomorrow’s stock market launch.

CREDITORS TAKE ALL (Dagens Næringsliv)

Telenor’s chief executive Tormod Hermansen will have to run straight from the Oslo Stock Exchange to the company’s creditors with the NOK 16 billion he has made on the sale of Telenor shares. Bowing to pressure from the international investment community Trade and Industry Minister Grete Knudsen priced Telenor’s shares at NOK 42 per share. The share issue was therefore oversubscribed. This could result in an extra pot of 51 million shares being released at a value of NOK 2 billion. That would give Mr Hermansen the NOK 18 billion he needs to cover Telenor’s short-term liabilities.

R&D MAY BOOST OIL REVENUES (Aftenposten)

By using new technology Norway could increase the value of the country’s oil and gas reserves by at least NOK 900 billion, according to a report commissioned by the Research Council of Norway. However, it will be necessary to intensify Norway’s activities in the research and development field if the country is to achieve such massive gains in coming decades.

WORTH NOTING

• The fall in the price of IT shares cost Telenor around NOK 5 billion and may have weakened the company’s international expansion programme. (Dagsavisen)
• At a secret meeting on Thursday evening Telenor’s board of directors voted to lower the price of the company’s shares. Major investors were informed of what was about to happen several hours before the decision was formally made. Small investors, on the other hand, were told nothing until after the deadline for subscriptions. (Dagbladet/Saturday)
• A majority of workers say that they would like to stop working before the official retirement age of 67. As many as thirty per cent say they would consider retiring before reaching 60. (Aftenposten/Sunday)
• Last week the abattoir and meat processing group Fatland was visited by a European food chain which is considering importing Norwegian meat. The company sees opportunities for exports worth NOK 1.4 billion. (Nationen)
• Christmas advertisements tempt consumers with the promise of "buy now – pay in four months". However, only around half of those who purchase on credit repay the full amount so quickly. (Dagsavisen/Saturday)
• After endless and chaotic rounds of ballot-counting, and last-minute telephone calls to round-up absentee delegates, øystein Hedstrøm secured the support of the Fredrikstad branch of the Progress Party for a new term as MP. But victory may be short-lived. Tomorrow the party’s county executive committee will invalidate the entire meeting. (Dagbladet/Sunday)

TODAY’S COMMENT FROM AFTENPOSTEN

Two events this weekend, the annual meeting on Saturday of the Progress Party’s Fredrikstad branch and yesterday’s national executive committee meeting, have demonstrated yet again that one of the country’s largest parties has an organizational culture that is undemocratic, unworthy and therefore totally unacceptable in an enlightened democracy. The only thing that prevents us from describing the entire party in the same terms is the respect we feel for the many voters who still believe the Progress Party is their best alternative. We do not hesitate to use every opportunity to warn voters against supporting the party, but in a democracy the fact that some people prefer a party of the Progress Party’s calibre must be tolerated. We are, after all, dealing with a populist party, not a racist one. In-fighting of the kind we have seen in the Progress Party, with its strange and nebulous mixture of political, organizational and personal conflicts, is most often found in populist parties. When the party’s main political objective is to satisfy whatever happens to be the strongest current of discontent in the population, it is in a weak position to tackle internal disagreements.