The Royal Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Oslo
Press Division – Editor: Benedicte Tresselt Koren

Norway Daily No. 180/02

Date: 23 September 2002

Defence Minister promises backup to F-16 unit in Kyrgyzstan (NTB/Sunday)

The first contingent of Norway’s F-16 unit left the country yesterday. For the first time since the second world war Norwegian fighter planes will take part in ‘live’ air-to-ground operations in another country. "This is a war on terrorism, not a war in normal terms," said Defence Minister Kristin Krohn Devold yesterday as she watched the first 66 of around 100 service men and women leave for Kyrgyzstan. For six months from 1 October the Norwegian unit of six F-16 fighter planes will combat Taliban and al-Qaida forces in Afghanistan from its base in Kyrgyzstan.

Norway’s aid to Afghanistan (Dagsavisen)

Since September 11 Norway has spent more than twice as much money on its military campaign in Afghanistan as on rebuilding the country through humanitarian aid. The youth wing of the charity, Norwegian Church Aid, describes this set of priorities as ‘insane’. By the end of the year Norway will have spent NOK 776 million to send military personnel and equipment to Afghanistan. During the same period we have donated NOK 350 million in humanitarian assistance. On Saturday the first Norwegian fighter planes flew to a US air base in Kyrgyzstan. From there they will patrol the Afghan skies – fully laden with bombs. The US-led war in Afghanistan started just less than one year ago.

Call for war against Iraq to be debated in the full Storting (Klassekampen/Saturday)

Kjetil Bjørklund, the Socialist Left Party’s defence policy spokesman, has called for Norway’s attitude to Iraq to be debated in the full Storting. In similar situations before only an extended Foreign Affairs Committee has been consulted. The Socialist Left Party’s demand has received the backing of the Progress Party and the Centre Party. The three parties amount to a ‘qualified minority’, which can demand such an open debate.

NHO wants Gjedrem to police pay rises (Dagens Næringsliv)

Finn Bergesen Jr, chief executive of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO), says that Svein Gjedrem, Governor of the Norwegian Central Bank, should come out much more strongly and scare the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and employees with the consequences of demanding substantial pay rises. Mr Bergesen wants Mr Gjedrem to set a norm for pay rises ahead of each year’s round of wage negotiations. The NHO believes that pay rises in Norway are far too high and wants Mr Gjedrem to set a norm for pay rises and tell employees straight out that if they exceed the norm it will lead to a rise in interest rates. "I do not want to turn Svein Gjedrem into a kind of wages police or a wages minister," said Gerd-Liv Valla, president of the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO), who rejects Mr Bergesen’s suggestion outright.

Norwegian women not wanted (Dagbladet/Saturday)

Here are the figures which reveal just how bad things are in terms of gender equality in Norwegian business life. Only six out of 612 chairmen of Norwegian public limited companies (ASAs) are women. A survey which the Brønnøysund Register of Business Enterprises has carried out at the request of Dagbladet turned up this extremely low proportion of women at the top. The survey reveals that the top positions in the country’s public limited companies – the most important players on the Norwegian business scene – are almost entirely restricted to men.

Abolish additional cash benefit for under threes (Verdens Gang/Saturday)

Labour deputy leader candidate Trond Giske and Jan Davidsen, leader of the Norwegian Union of Municipal Employees, want to abolish the additional cash benefit for children under three. They would prefer to spend the money on improving the quality of pre-school nurseries and extending parental leave. The two men feel it is time for the Labour Party to once again go into battle against the additional cash benefit for the under threes. "When we get the pre-school nursery reform in place, with a maximum price and enough places for all, there will no longer be any need for the additional cash benefit," said Mr Giske, pointing out that Labour’s decision to withdraw its opposition to the scheme was simply an attempt to extend the hand of friendship to the Christian Democrats.

Additional cash benefit divides Labour (Dagsavisen/Sunday)

Karita Bekkemellem Orheim has rubbished Trond Giske’s proposal for a new battle over the additional cash benefit for the under threes. "A gift for the Christian Democrats and the Conservatives", is how the leader of Labour’s women’s movement describes Trond Giske’s proposal to resume the struggle to abolish the additional cash benefit for children under three. A new conflict is brewing in the Labour Party about how it should respond to the additional cash benefit issue. The conflict divides the two leading candidates for the party’s deputy leader slot, and also splits Labour’s women’s movement, which held its national conference this weekend.

Nuclear waste to be removed from rusting hulks (Aftenposten)

After decades of ticking away like an undetonated time-bomb, the nuclear waste stored aboard the Lepse in Murmansk will now be destroyed. Norway will sign the clean-up agreement today. Together with the other Nordic countries, Norway will contribute to cleaning up the environmental problems posed by the nuclear barge Lepse. Norway will contribute NOK 25 million out of a combined Nordic fund amounting to just under NOK 100 million. A number of other European countries are also participating in the project, whose aim is to remove the 639 damaged fuel cells from the storage vessel and have them safely destroyed.

Extension of salmon agreement with EU (NTB/Saturday)

On Friday the Council of State formally extended the salmon agreement between Norway and the EU until February 2003. Norwegian exporters must therefore keep to a minimum salmon price for at least another five months. The agreement means that Norwegian salmon farmers must sell their salmon at a higher price than other salmon producers both inside and outside the EU. In other words, the scheme weakens Norwegian salmon farmers’ ability to compete in the important EU market. The extension of the agreement means that exporters will still have to pay a salmon export tariff of 2.25 per cent.

Ulltveit-Moe launches attack on Stein Erik Hagen (Dagens Næringsliv/Saturday)

Jens Ulltveit-Moe, president of the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO), has attacked the plutocratic members of the Norwegian Investors’ Forum, led by supermarket billionaire Stein Erik Hagen. Mr Ulltveit-Moe says that Mr Hagen and his cronies are acting like a bunch of ‘moaning Minnies’ who are simply out to get rich at society’s expense. Mr Ulltveit-Moe, who in addition to being president of the NHO, owns the Umoe shipping and investment group, had himself been a member of the Norwegian Investors’ Forum until earlier this summer. His membership had become a problem because the NHO and the Norwegian Investors’ Forum had radically differing views on the benefits of state ownership. Now Mr Ulltveit-Moe has gone one step further. "Companies are the organizations that are supposed to create wealth. The state is supposed to lay the ground rules and distribute the resources. Bringing the state into the wealth creation sector, in the way the Norwegian Investors’ Forum wants, would be wrong. It would be a conflict of roles," said Mr Ulltveit-Moe in an interview with the NHO’s publication Horizon.

Worth Noting

• Public prosecutor Ingunn Fossgard has confirmed that the Director General of Public Prosecutions was informed by the British human rights organization, Indict, as long ago as July that Mullah Krekar was in Iraq. But nothing happened.
  (Dagbladet/Saturday)
• "There are a lot of considerations to take into account when the party’s leadership team is to be put together. The balance of the sexes is just one of them," said deputy leadership candidate Trond Giske, referring to the Labour women’s movement’s resolution. Mr Giske refused to comment on whether this weekend’s resolution in favour of gender quotas in the party leadership represents an obstacle for his efforts to reach the top at this November’s annual Labour conference.
  (Aftenposten)
• The Labour Party’s women’s movement yesterday rejected a compromise deal which could have ensured a place in the Labour leadership for both Karita Bekkemellem Orheim and Trond Giske. At the same time the Labour women repeated their demand that two out of the party’s four top positions should be held by women.
  (Dagsavisen)
• In barely two years the slump on the world’s stock markets has almost halved the value of the unit trust investments made by around 1 million Norwegians. NOK 25 billion has been wiped off the value of their investments. Each unit trust investor as lost on average NOK 25,000 since the beginning of 2001.
  (Aftenposten)
• Children as young as seven must be asked who they want to live with when their parents divorce, according to former Children and Family Affairs Minister Karita Bekkemellem Orheim. The Labour Party’s women’s conference will today debate proposals giving lesbian women the right to undergo in vitro fertilization and banning religious private schools.
  (Aftenposten/Sunday)
• Central government workplaces in which one of the sexes is over-represented could be forced to invite both men and women to job interviews. The Gender Equality Ombud is also in favour of using gender quotas for men in certain circumstances.
  (Aftenposten/Saturday)
• The Norwegian sick pay scheme is not as expensive as previously thought. Absenteeism through illness costs employers NOK 7 billion less than previously estimated, according to new figures Dagens Næringsliv has received from the National Insurance Administration.
  (Dagens Næringsliv/Saturday)
• Government ministers and MPs look set to receive a substantial pay hike this autumn. The commission which sets their salaries has turned a deaf ear to the call for moderation issued by the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO) and is about to announce pay rises of NOK 22,000-32,000 for the country’s national politicians.
  (Dagsavisen/Saturday)
• The Council of State yesterday appointed the reverend Laila Riksaasen Dahl to succeed Sigurd Oseberg as Bishop of Tunsberg. Ms Riksaasen Dahl, who is currently the vicar of Nittedal, won both the second and third round of church ballots. She becomes Norway’s second woman bishop after Rosemarie Köhn.

Today’s comment from Verdens Gang

The Labour Party’s women’s movement decided yesterday that it did not want its leader to be part of the party’s leadership team. This means that the Labour leadership will continue to consist of four people. The party leader, two deputy leaders and the party secretary. It also means that Trond Giske is probably out of the running in the race to capture the Labour Party’s vacant deputy leader slot. The women’s movement’s original plan to demand that the party leadership be extended to five has been Trond Giske’s strongest card in the deputy leadership battle. If the proposal had been adopted it would have meant that the leader of the women’s movement and the sitting deputy leader, Hill-Marta Solberg, would together have fulfilled the demand for 40 per cent female representation on the leadership team. It would therefore have been of no great interest whether the remaining deputy leader had been a woman or a man. It would also have meant that Trond Giske could have pursued his deputy leadership campaign without worrying about gender equality issues. He cannot do that now. In practice, the women’s movement’s resolution means that both Trond Giske and Karita Bekkemellem Orheim could be out of the race. Mr Giske because he is a man, and Ms Bekkemellem Orheim because she is just one of many women deputy leader candidates. The debate can now be expected to focus solely on personalities.