Ex-refugees must pay Norwegian state NOK 10 million (Aftenposten)

Around 1,000 refugees who have received financial assistance from the Norwegian authorities to return home, but who have violated the conditions on which the money was granted, must settle their debts with the State Agency for the Recovery of Fines, Damages and Costs. The Immigration Directorate (UDI) is owed NOK 10.5 million, and has decided to recover the cash. The majority of the funds are owed by Kosovo Albanians, while a small amount is owed by other refugees from the former Yugoslavia. 6,173 refugees were evacuated from Kosovo to Norway in a major operation during the spring of 1999. After peace was restored to the country the Norwegian state offered NOK 15,000 to each person who returned to their war-torn homeland. The majority went home, but 1,411 later came back to Norway.

Four out of ten will get smaller pension (Aftenposten)

If the proposed new pension scheme is adopted, more than a million people currently in employment will have less money to spend when they retire. People on middle incomes will lose around NOK 10,000 a year. It is the richest section of society which will benefit most from the reform. The Pension Commission’s proposal has provoked strong reactions in the Labour Party. Social policy spokesman, Håkon Bjarne Hanssen, has warned that there will be a lively debate on this issue at the party’s annual conference in November. On Monday, fellow Labour representative on the Storting’s Social Affairs Committee, Britt Hildeng, had already publicly hammered the proposal to replace the current early retirement scheme (AFP) with a flexible voluntary retirement age from 62 to 70.

Pension reform attacked as male chauvinist (Dagsavisen)

The proposed pension reform will give a smaller pension to those who work only a few years and who earn a low salary. According to the union movement, this will hit women, the low paid and part-time workers. "This proposal must make women shake their fists in anger," said Anders Folkestad of the Confederation of Higher Education Unions, Norway (UHO), whose members include nurses, ergonomists and physiotherapists. Bjørg Listein, deputy leader of the Norwegian Association of Health and Social Care Personnel (NHS), described the Pension Commission’s perspective as "male chauvinist".

Minister calls for union cooperation on pay (Dagens Næringsliv)

Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik has invited Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and other leading figures on both sides of industry to a meeting of the Government’s consultative committee on Monday. The topic under discussion will be the crisis in industry and the need for a new cooperation agreement on pay. Labour and Government Administration Minister Victor D. Norman will also attend the meeting. He wants to introduce a scheme whereby employer and union leaders as well as the Government come together ahead of the annual wage negotiations and try to agree on a framework for the year’s wage rises.

Government set to lose NOK 900 million (Verdens Gang)

Tightening up the tax rules for the use of company cars was supposed to bring the cash rolling into the Government’s coffers. Instead the Government looks set to lose almost NOK 1 billion on the scheme this year. The sale of company cars has plummeted after the tax increases were announced. And many of those who still have a company car choose to buy a cheaper model. Company cars are quite simply too expensive. The Government is therefore losing out on huge sums in car taxes.

Mud wrestling at Orkla (Aftenposten)

The power struggle at Orkla took a dramatic turn yesterday. Shareholder Stein Erik Hagen has now gone so far as to name former Orkla chief executive Jens P. Heyerdahl as one of the people behind a smear campaign against himself, Christen Sveaas and Tore Lindholt, chief executive of the National Insurance Scheme Fund. Yesterday the three victims of the smear campaign met Orkla’s senior management. "I had received information that it was correct to bring to the attention of Orkla’s management," said Stein Erik Hagen after yesterday’s meeting. In a leader Aftenposten writes: "The battle for Orkla resembles a bout of mud wrestling. We onlookers can choose between shock and amazement." It was the tabloid newspaper Verdens Gang which reported the dirty tactics being used against Sveaas, Hagen and Lindholt in its Saturday edition.

NOK 475 billion melted into thin air (Dagens Næringsliv)

The Oslo Stock Exchange fell yesterday to its lowest level since December 1998. Over NOK 475 billion has evaporated from the country’s listed companies since the stock exchange’s all-time-high of 14 September 2000. Both institutional and private investors are now throwing shares out of their portfolios. Many have long since put their money in the bank.

Keiko allowed to stay in Norwegian fjord (Dagsavisen)

People are still flocking in droves to Skålvikfjorden on the Norwegian west coast to see the world’s most famous killer whale. And Keiko is not in the least bit averse to the enormous amount of attention he has been receiving. Scientists have now decided that the killer whale can stay in Norway. "But on condition that he manages to catch his own food. Keiko must be able to fend for himself in future," said Colin Bairt. The Canadian scientist has been following Keiko with a satellite tracking device. "We are prepared to block off part of the fjord for Keiko," said Pål Ola Sætre of the Fisheries Ministry.

Worth Noting

• Today’s children, teenagers and 20-40 year-olds will live longer and must therefore work one to three years longer to get the same pension as today’s 60 year-olds. Otherwise they should receive a smaller pension, according to the Pensions Commission.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)
• According to the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court (ICC), Norway is obliged to hand over any Norwegian citizen, including the king, to the ICC. But the Norwegian constitution grants the reigning monarch absolute exemption from prosecution. "Ratification of the Rome Statute violates the Norwegian constitution," said professor Eivind Smith.
  (Klassekampen)
• 25,000 current and former Royal Norwegian Navy personnel are to take part in a survey which will, among other things, log incidences of cancer and birth defects. The reason for the survey is the discovery of birth defects in children born to men who had served aboard the royal naval vessel, KNMKvikk. Children whose parents were employed at the telecommunications workshop at the Haakonsvern naval base in Bergen have also been born with birth defects, and there is a worryingly large number of cases of cancer among former employees of the coastal defence installations at Rødbergodden and Meløyvær in North Norway.
  (NRK/NTB)
• One in six of the seamen killed while working in the merchant navy, dies as a result of an accident during lifeboat drills, according to a British report. An average of 24 lifeboat accidents a year have been reported aboard Norwegian ships in the period 1996-1999.
  (Bergens Tidende)
• Finance Minister Per-Kristian Foss says that Norwegian industry is exaggerating the difficulties it is facing and is engaged in a lobbying campaign ahead of next year’s budget. Jobs have always been lost, says Mr Foss.
  (Dagens Næringsliv)
• The provision of postal services has been profitable for those supermarkets which have introduced the scheme. Their turnover is four times higher than those supermarkets without postal services, according to a survey.
  (Nationen)
• Traditional names will disappear from the Norwegian legal system from 1 January next year. The terms Probate and Bankruptcy Court, Magistrate’s Court, Court of Execution and Enforcement, Court of Protection and Court of Appraisement will no longer be used. "All courts of first instance will simply be called District Courts regardless of what kind of cases they hear," writes the Ministry of Justice in a circular to all other government departments.
  (NTB)

Today’s comment from Vårt Land

The ratio of pensioners to people in paid employment is getting steadily larger, and this trend will only accelerate in the years to come. How are we to organize our state pension scheme in the face of this development? An official commission is working on this issue and delivered its preliminary report yesterday. The commission asks a lot of questions, but gives few answers. We do not need an in-depth analysis to outline the major problems. The first is how we can get more people to work longer before they retire, without simultaneously punishing those who need to stop working because they are genuinely worn out. The other problem is whether the state should content itself with securing a basic income for all, or if we should continue to base ourselves on the idea that all of us will be able to manage on the state pension scheme alone. In the latter case there will need to be greater differentiation within the state pension scheme. People have become more concerned with securing their own old-age, and many also have the financial resources to do so. To work towards a situation in which everyone is content to receive the state pension alone is probably a lost cause. There must be room for people to take more private responsibility for their own financial security in old age. However, it is important to retain the state pension scheme as a good and generous system which provides the vast majority of people with an adequate living. Achieving that alone could be a major challenge in the years ahead.