“When the Norwegian people has voted NO to join the EU two times, it is not that much about oil wealth or selfishness,” you say.

Let us just agree to disagree on that count (and, I am sure, on several others).

I am sorry for the late reply. I was extremely busy at the time of your comment, and forgot all about it later on.

It is often about:

- The centralization of power. Decicions should be made close to the people they affect. Norway is a small nation and would have less than 1% influence on EU policies.

The EU now has a common
– foreign policy
– farming policy
– economic policy
– fishing policy
– aid policy
– and some more

- In the WTO the EU has a common policy, often pressuring developing countries into bad deals. If Norway has an independent voice in WTO it will be possible to choose to have a different policy.

- Certainly Norway does have economic reasons to not join the EU. Not out of selfishness, rather out of a wish to not participate in an economic project that isn’t going to work.

- It is a democratic problem that after the Treaty of Lisbon the EU constitution has attached market liberalism as a particular policy direction.
“Free Trade” and the “four freedoms” (free movement of capital, goods, labor and services) takes precedence over political decisions. This limits the political room for maneuver, making it difficult for elected politicians to change the political course when nessecary.

The EU Court judges often member states to amend laws that violate the EU’s free trade rules. Health, environment and labor rights must often give way.

- The EU policy of “free trade” causes more pollution because products are transported more between the nations. And if a nation has a law to protect the environment that goes against the “free-flow” principle, the EU will force the nation to remove that law. For example a member nation can not say that all new cars should only have 120 gr CO2 emittions pr kilometer. A member nation can not have stricter rules than the rest of the EU.

-Also the farming and fishing policies of the EU aren’t always ethical or environmental einough. For example, big areas are used to farm one kind of vegetable, creating a monoculture that is bad for the sustainability. Or when the EU fishing fleet is fishing in occupied West Sahara. Isn’t exploiting occupied land like that breaking the Geneve-convention?

- Most significant environmental agreements are global, and are made in the UN. Example of this is the Kyoto agreement on greenhouse gases, or the negotiations in Denmark last year. When this type of agreements being negotiated, the EU speaks with one voice. (last year didn’t this result in the EU not being able to decide in time for the conference? lol)

- What I’m saying is that EU countries like Sweden can not say what they want but must follow the EU’s common line.
Often Swedish negotiators come to the Norwegian ones, and ask them to suggest the ideas that Sweden has not managed to get approval for in the EU.
That also makes it even more important for Norway to continue to have an independent voice.

- Norway is the distributor of more foreign aid per capita than any other country. If Norway joins the EU, this will probably be ruined, since the EU has a common foreign aid policy.

On its own, Norway will have the freedom and possibility to choose its own policies, the possibility to make better choices than the politicians in the EU.

And there is a lot more to say too…

I’m inclined to think so.