It’s been 15 years today since the Norwegian public turned down an EU membership in the 1994 referendum, held on Monday 28 November. After a long and heated debate the nay-sayers drew the longest straw, winning 52.2 percent of the votes, on an 88.6 percent turnout.
As an (extremely) active member of the European Movement at the time, I would be lying if I declared myself unaffected by the outcome, like the rest of the remaining 47,8 percent yes voters. The European Movement held a party in central Oslo that night …

This upcoming Monday marks a milestone in Europe’s recent history; the fall of the Berlin wall on 9 November 1989 and the subsequent reunion of a war-struck Germany – taking both WW2 and the following cold war into account.
British pre-war PM Neville Chamberlain had a point, you know, in claiming peace in our time – depending on how you define our time. As luck has it, France, West Germany, Italy, Belgium, Holland and Luxembourg signed the European coal and steel union treaty, the European Union’s predecessor, on just 9 November …

The Norwegian population said no to EU membership, not once, but twice; in the 1972 and the 1994 referendums. Why? Only years before the 1972 referendum it became clear that Norway’s economy was in for a major boost, facilitating unprescedented wealth for one of Europe’s up until then poorest nations. A wealth which definitely had taken effect by 1994, at which point we turned down membership once more.
Even though we were stinking rich at the time, the debate revolved around this single issue: What’s in it for us? Of course …