An update: Negotiations with Austria, Sweden and Finland were brought
to a "successful conclusion" on March 1, 1994. The Norwegian talks are
set to resume on March 8. The agreed upon date for accession will be
January 1, 1995 supposing that referenda and parliamentary approval is
forthcoming in the new members.
The reason for the protracted negotiations with Norway is not
primarily a conflict between Norw. gvt. and EU (with Spain as the most
recalcitrant). The main reason is that the Norw. YES gvt. is
also negotiating with the Norw. people, i.e. they have to appear as
die-hards in Brussels to try to influence the stable and very
well-informed NO majority in our country (due to 20 years of EU
discussions in NOrway, and especially the struggle in 1972 when a
majority of 53.5% voted NO to membership, the average Norwegian knows
more about the workings of the EU system than the average EU citizen).
If there had been a YES majority on Norway, the gvt. would have given
in in the negotiations several days ago: The right-wing
"social-democrat" gvt. are willing to sell their own grandmothers to
sit at the table with Kohl, Mitterand and Major.
The date for our referendum is not decided. Opininion polls show
approx. 30-32 % YES and 45-50% NO, and the NO lead has been stable for
a couple of years, in spite of extreme skewedness in media resources
(TV,radio and 95% of newspapers are YES). In Sweden there also has been
a stable NO majority, although only with a lead of say 5%, but in spite
of a similar unfair media situation there. My prediction is that
Norway, hopefully Sweden will stay out of this monstrosity, the EU,
along with Switzerland and Iceland which do not apply for membership.
Finland, I think, will join. The Finnish people are desperate due to >
20% unemployment, and also not so thouroughly informed on the EU since
this is a relatively new topic there.
BTW, there is an interesting conflict on the dates of the referendums.
The Norw. gvt. (which is YES) wants our referendum to be the last, in
the hope that Finland and Sweden will vote YES, and then use this to
goad a YES from the doubters in Norway. The Norw. NO movement has
proposed to organize referendums on the same date in Finland, Sweden,
Norway, which of course is ignored by the respective YES gvt.'s.
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Trond Andresen ([EMAIL PROTECTED])
Department of Engineering Cybernetics
The Norwegian Institute of Technology
N-7034 Trondheim, NORWAY
phone +47 73 59 43 58
fax +47 73 59 43 99
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