WI Norway joined the EU

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Norway had a referendum on wether or not they should join the EU in 1994 and the result was 48 in favor and 52 against. But what if the numbers had been reversed and Norway had been part of EU today. Any consequenses for the EU or Norway?
 
For Norway, some but not that much. OTL Scheengen and EØS means that Norway is integrated into EU structures in a large degree, and is rather good at implementing directives.

The differences i can see:
- Faster decline of som parts of Norwegian agriculture. This would be a good thing imho (we subsidise grain her growers and then burn it).
- Would the country gain, lose or maintaine more or less the same amount of influence on the EU.
- Faster impelentation of the ECHR, and its principles.
- Faster reformes, keeping the liberalising momentum form the 80`s going, and also making them easier.
 
I don't really see that much changing if Norway joined the EU. There would be, of course, the Euroskeptics in the country, but that's happening in a good amount of EU members.

Like you said, subsidies for grains. I see Norway keeping the same amount of influence in the EU as it does in OTL.
 

Thande

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Fishery problems. The Japanese are even more isolated over whaling. Scandinavia is thought of even more as one entity, with all three countries being regarded as holding that niche of 'second tier EU members that stay out of the euro but where euroscepticism is considerably less mainstream than in the UK'.
 
I see Norway keeping the same amount of influence in the EU as it does in OTL.
Hm... I have an hard time seeing that, to be honest. If nothing else, there are still issues where councillors of the Council of the European Union have a veto (and even in the ones there isn't, well, one-of-twentyeight is more than none-of-twentyseven), and, hm, there is a small amount of influence to be had through the medium of having MEPs*.
* Of course, this entire reasoning is all about Norway's influence in the EU. I'm not touching the other side of it with a three-metre pole.
 
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Norway's membership would increase the efforts to make Iceland a member too, to put the whole Nordic group inside the Union and to make Nordic cooperation a completely inter-EU process. With or without Iceland as a member, the Nordic Council and similar organisations would look more like component parts of the Union today.

If Norway went for the Euro, like Finland, it would increase the pressure on Sweden and Denmark for joining too. But I guess they might well stay out.

Also, I could see Norway in the Union, with Denmark, being used as a more powerful argument for joining NATO in Finland and Sweden. The view that a Nordic common defence should based on the dual pillars of EU and NATO would be much more on the forefront in discussions on defence policy. While I am not saying either Finland or Sweden would have joined by 2011, I think the support for the organisation would be stronger in both countries.
 
Mainly the no voters were and are farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist.
 
Mainly the no voters were and are farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist.

Much the same as here in Finland. I think in both countries membership was opposed by those who saw it as a political/economic elite project that would lead to losing national sovereignty to "faceless Eurocrats". Basically all those who were against "centralization of power" and foreign/international business interests anyway.

Here, this included the (pro-Russian) far left, the independent-minded nationalists, and the Center Party. The last is the most important. The CP is and was a countryside party: the majority of its voters are farmers, live in the rural areas/smaller communities or are originally from those areas. It had and has the most anti-EU voters. Of the big three parties, it was the one that could have torpedoed the Finnish membership.

But luckily (?), in 1991-1995 it was the leading party in government, led by the new-generation economic liberal, Esko Aho. Aho and his allies did everything they could to get Finland into the Union, including going against the majority opinion of his own constituents. For example, it has been said that the Finnish government deliberately hastened the EU referendum here to hold it a month before the Norwegian one, in October 1994, because it feared that the Norwegians reject the membership and that would be a negative influence on the Finnish voters.

Had the CP been in opposition, led by an old guard guy like, say, Väyrynen, the anti-EU campaign might have been much more intense and Finland might well have followed the Norwegian model.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor
Mainly the no voters were and are farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist.

So more than 50% of the eligable voters in Norway are "farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist?"

Dont you think you are oversimplifying a bit? :rolleyes:
 
So more than 50% of the eligable voters in Norway are "farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist?"

Dont you think you are oversimplifying a bit? :rolleyes:

Sure to a degree, but not by much, after all the vote was 52 vs 48.
I could add the green movment, but they mostly fall in with Sv and RV.
(the rise of V as a alternate green party did not happen yet), the labour party splitt whit the left going against same as the labour unions.

The splitt equall the normal lef vs right, urban vs rural splitt we see in this country, and that follows party lines more or less.

Euroscepsis also played a part offcourse, but in broad strokes this was and still is the case.
 

Oddball

Monthly Donor

Hmm, but according to this Norwegian newspaperartickle, even the Norwegian Conservative Party (Høyre) is 50 % against and "only" 42 % pro EU... ;)

Ill repeat my question by even more specifying it:

So more than 50% of those who say they vote for Høyre are "farmers and fishermen, the politcal left of leftoffcenter, and nasionalist?"

Dont you think you are oversimplifying a bit? :rolleyes:
 
It would be Awesome. I Think it would have similar like Sweden, Finland and Denmark. :)

Also, Iceland might Joined EU as well. :)
 
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