Thinking about this, I thought I remembered there was some possibility the NU government wouldn't approve the GAZ deal, so I looked it up and apparently a group of Communist (A little ironic...) and SDL MPs had challenged it on grounds it violated NU laws against doing business with known human rights abusers, but a certain influential MP (Who just so happened to live right down the street from Saab's headquarters in Linköping...) argued that
reported and
known were different enough things to clear the deal. I guess even in the least corrupt countries you can't avoid politicians being slimy
. .
I think it's a rule of nature. All polticians must be slimy opportunistic bastards, no matter where you go.
OOC: We can assume that ICly, the identity of the aforementioned slimy politician in question is obvious .
OOC: Yep.
Well, maybe not quite Nordic level, but labor costs in the northeast are pretty high, and American trade unions and management are less inclined to cooperate with each other than the ones in Germany or the Nordic Union, which you avoid if you set up in a right-to-work state. Plus, lower wages are offset by the fact that the government here doesn't pick up the tab for healthcare.
But do you remember all the stormy weather around IKEA when it was shown that employees of their plants in North Carolina (I think..) were being treated poorly. By setting up shop somewhere with questionable labor practices, Nordic companies are just creating a whole lot of bad publicity back home.
Anyway, more on topic, without the Nordic Union example, internationalism might be set back; while unlike the NU it isn't an actual single sovereign state yet, the closer integration of the Benelux states was inspired partly by the NU (Although partly by getting fed up with the British screaming bloody murder every time someone suggested the European Community move towards closer integration) and Dag Hammarskjöld's mediation was instrumental in getting the Union of Arab Maghreb Republics off the ground.
Actually, the NU has overall been a great help in mediating between the west and the third world; being neutral and without imperialist baggage, they seem to garner more respect in Africa or the Middle East than Britain or France do. Their advocacy for the Namibian cause against Apartheid South Africa for example was so effective that IIRC at the independence celebrations a lot of Namibians waved NU flags (Incidentally, half of Namibians are Lutherans, the only Lutheran-majority country in the world other than the NU, in no small part of 19th century Finnish missionaries, and some Swedish and Norwegian church organizations were well known for declaring solidarity with the Namibians, which also helped endear them to the Nordics).
Well technically it is. I mean we have a common trade policy, common defense policy, common foreign policy, Nordic embassies in other countries, not Danish, Swedish, Finnish, etc., Nordic representatives at the UN. Granted we're not completely integrated, but I personally cannot see the NU as full on unitary state in the future. I do see us moving in the federal direction, especially after the creation of the Nordic Police Service back in '02.
Well, IMO, with their similar history, languages, and culture, the Benelux countries were going to unite somewhere down the road anyway. The NU was just a sign pointing them in the right direction. Though the self imposed isolation of Britain under Prime Minister Powell sure didn't hurt.
Yeah, Dag Hammarskjöld was a great statesman. Without him as a unifying figure in our early days as a nation I don't know if would've become a well respected power on the international scene. His general popularity among the general populace of the NU also helped a lot, because of someone tremendously unpopular had been in power during our early days, who knows if the union would've lasted.
It's weird actually, how popular you suddenly get if you reveal that you're a Nordic Union citizen when you visit Namibia. I haven't personally gone, but my buddy has and he said that people were all over him, trying to buy him drinks in bars, etc. I know that the close relationship with Namibia has certainly helped Nordic companies who want to gain a foothold there. If you look at the numbers, you can see that most of the top ten multinational companies that invest in Namibia, are in fact Nordic in origin. Hell, we know for a fact that Scania and Volvo both have significant plants there, building trucks and buses for the African market.
OOC again: I'm curious about the likely fate of the monarchist trappings in Denmark, Sweden, and Norway. Would they keep their monarchies and state churches after the union, just now on a subnational level?
OOC: We can assume that they keep their monarchies on a subnational level, but the state churches could eventually be completely separated from the state, just like what happened with the Church of Sweden 11 years ago.