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** NORWAY 2014 - A PROLOGUE ** |
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Demography and Topography |
Jotunheimen Mountains 1968 |
Economy of Norway |
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History of Norway |
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Last year from Swedish Lapland and the year before from Northern Finland, we crossed into Arctic Norway visiting the northern cities of Kirkenes, Hammerfest, Alta, Tromsø and Narvik, and journeyed around the indented fjord coastline of Finmark to its northernmost tip at Nordkapp. It seemed appropriate therefore to devote our 2014 travels to exploring the entire country of Norway, journeying from the southernmost point close to Kristiansand right up to the Russian border at Grense Jakabselv and the remote, isolated Pasvik valley in the far north. Our preparatory researches have benefitted from the detailed accounts of journeys through Scandinavia published by our good friends and fellow travellers Margaret and Barry Williamson, whose web site Magbaz Travels provides a travel information resource of encyclopaedic proportions.
DFDS' monopolistic acquisition of North Sea ferry routes has resulted in loss of any direct ferry route from UK to Norway and continual yearly price increases on the one remaining link from Harwich to Esbjerg on the West Jutland coast; this means an onward ferry link from Hirtshals in Northern Denmark across the Skagerrak to Kristiansand or Langersund closer to Oslo. We shall be setting off shortly and during the course of our journeying around Norway, we shall publish on our web site detailed travelogues and pictorial records covering the progress of our travels. As is our custom, we now present this Prologue study with demographic, topographical, economic and historical background to Norway, our host country for 2014.
Norwegian Topography: the long and narrow Norwegian mainland stretches 2,518
kms from the southernmost point at Lindesnes to Nordkapp in the farthest Arctic
North, covering a total area of 386,000 square kms of which half is mountainous and
a further third is forest, lake and river. But it is the diversity of topography
that so fascinates. Norway has the highest mountains in Northern Europe: Glittertind at 2,470m
(8,104 feet) and Galdhøpiggen, 2,469m (8,100feet), in the Jotunheimen Mountains north of Bergen. Paul made a
mountaineering expedition to the Jotunheimen along with his friend
HISTORY OF NORWAY:
The Age of the Vikings:
during the 9~11th centuries AD, the Vikings from all parts of southern
Scandinavia dominated the political and economic life of Europe and beyond.
Driven by rapid population growth and unrest at home, the Swedish Vikings sought
trade and conquest eastwards, with commercial contacts
as far as the Black Sea
and Byzantine Empire. The Norwegian Vikings sailed westwards in their longships along the coast of Britain,
bringing back booty and slaves from poorly
defended coastal settlements. The first raid on the Lindisfarne monastery took
place in 793 AD, and soon
Union with Denmark, the Reformation, and 17~18th century
Danish absolute monarchy: after Margaret's death in 1412, power was concentrated in Denmark; Norway was
impoverished by the levels of taxation levied by Erik for his various foreign
wars. His incompetent and brutal rule ended with his being deposed by the
nobility of all 3 countries. In 1439, Sweden left the Union, and Christian of
Oldenburg was
crowned king of Denmark and Norway, with Norway from now on ceasing to play any
meaningful part in Scandinavian affairs.
Norway was exploited for raw materials and finance by the Danish state with
Danish becoming the official language replacing Old Norse, and Norway regarded
as a cultural backwater. In 1469 the Danish
king mortgaged the Orkneys and Shetlands to the Scots to pay for his daughter's
dowry and 3 years later, the Scots annexed the islands permanently. Christian II
ruthlessly continued the policy of Danicisation until his forced abdication in
1523. Danish civil war resulted in victory for the Protestant Christian III
(1503~59) and the loss of Norway's last independent institution, the Catholic
Church; in 1536 Christian III decreed that Norway should cease to be a separate
country and that the Lutheran faith should become the official religion. The
Reformation became a powerful instrument of Danish control imposed on largely
rural Norway. During the later 16th and early 17th centuries, Denmark fought a
series of wars against the Swedes which ravaged much of Norway. The Renaissance
made little impact on Norway until the long and productive reign of Christian IV
(1588~1648) (see right);
Norway's union with Sweden (1814~1905)
and the National Romantic movement: Karl XIV Johan's armed occupation
of Norway
in 1814 was the last war fought by Sweden. Under the uneasy union Norway
retained its own government, the Storting, but Sweden dictated foreign
policy. Despite this, Karl XIV Johan proved a popular monarch with Norwegians
and the
Norway's early independence and World War 1 (1905~1930): newly
independent Norway impressed the world by the feats of its polar explorers
Fridtjof Nansen (1861~1930), and Roald Amundsen (1872~1928) (see left) who on
his 1910~12 Antarctic expedition became the first to reach the South Pole
famously beating his British rival Captain Robert Scott. Norway's independence
came
German occupation during World War 2: to secure control of the
Swedish iron ore supply, the Germans invaded Norway in April 1940 and King Håkon and
the government withdrew north, rejecting German demands for surrender. A force
of British, French and Polish troops were landed at Narvik to protect the iron
ore supply but after a 2 months campaign and Allied withdrawal, the Norwegians
were forced to capitulate; the King and government fled into exile in England
via Tromsø. The Germans quickly occupied the whole of the country, a puppet
fascist government under Vidkun Quisling as 'Minister President' (see below left) installed in Oslo (his
name became a byword for collaborators who betray their country), and the media
and civil servants brought under its control. But the Norwegian public, the Church, trade unions and teachers refused to cooperate, and in
response deportations increased, death sentences carried out and a compulsory
labour scheme imposed. Most significantly an armed resistance movement, supplied
from Britain and trained in Sweden, was set up. By early 1941 it had enlisted
20,000 men in clandestine groups to carry our acts of sabotage, publish
underground newspapers and set up radio stations for continuous supply of
intelligence to London about German military movements. The most
Modern Norway and oil wealth
(1980 to
present day): during the mid~late 1980s minority Labour governments
led by Norway's first woman Prime Minister, Gro Harlem Brundtland (see right)
were beset by the problems of low oil prices, recession, increased
unemployment (even so only 4%) and public dissatisfaction with Labour's high
taxation policies.
So that's the background story of Norway so far. With Norway's high cost of living, it is undoubtedly going to be an expensive trip, but as always we journey with a purpose: the intention is that our travels will give the opportunity for learning more for ourselves more about our host-country and its society, and for discussing and understanding more about life in Norway. We set off shortly and as usual shall be publishing regular reports on our web site, with news-updates and pictorial record of our travels. Add the site to your Favourites to be sure of sharing our travels; we should welcome your companionship.
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Norwegian Demography: despite the country's size, with only
5 million inhabitants Norway has one
of the continent's lowest population densities. Population
distribution is however very uneven (see left): almost 80% of the population
lives in the main urban centres with 12% living in the Oslo area. 60,000
indigenous Sámi live mainly in the arctic northern region. Over recent years,
Norway's population has become increasingly multicultural with immigrants and
those born in Norway of immigrant parents together totalling 700,000 (14%
of the overall population); Oslo has the largest share with 170,000 immigrants
(27% of the capital's population). More than half of immigrants come from
Pakistan, Somalia, Iraq and Iran, although the largest groups are from Poland,
Sweden and Lithuania. Around 46% of immigrants have Norwegian citizenship.
Immigration and integration policies have been the subject of much debate in
Norway, as the nation has tried to deal with people of many languages and
cultures without giving up its own values.
Andrew in 1968, and a 
but the country struggled
economically. All of that changed dramatically in the 1970s with the discovery
and exploitation of North Sea oil and gas. Norway asserted sovereign rights over natural resources in its sector of the
North Sea, and suddenly the Norwegian economy boomed, transforming one of
Europe's poorest countries to one of the richest. Norway became a major petroleum-exporting country; the government decided to stay out of OPEC, keeping its own
energy prices in line with world markets to begin developing the country's infrastructure
and using oil profits to pay off the
national debt. In anticipation of eventual declines in oil and gas production,
Norway saves state revenue from the petroleum sector in the world's largest
sovereign wealth fund, used to finance public expenses. Since oil and gas transformed the Norwegian economy, successive
socialist governments have used the windfall to foster one of the world's most
extensive social welfare systems, creating what the government claims is the
'most egalitarian social democracy in Western Europe'. But Norway has chosen to
remain on the fringes of Europe economically and politically; although a
member of the European Economic Area, the country narrowly voted in 1972 and
1994 national referenda against full EU membership. The North Sea has presented many technological challenges for oil and
gas production and exploration, and Norwegian companies invested in building
capabilities to exploit the opportunities: engineering construction companies
emerged from the remnants of the largely lost shipbuilding industry;
Stavanger and Hammerfest developed as the staging areas for the off-shore
drilling industry. Norway is now the
world's third-largest natural gas exporter and fifth largest oil exporter. Today Norwegians enjoy the second-highest European
GDP per-capita (after Luxembourg) and fourth-highest GDP per-capita in the
world, and Norway ranks as the second-wealthiest country in the world in
monetary value, with the largest capital reserve per capita of any nation.
Migrant prehistoric settlers: in the millennia following the retreat of
the last Ice Age 10,000 years ago, nomadic tribes of hunter-gatherers, the Komsa
peoples ancestors of the Sámi, migrated
from Central Asia into the northerly regions of what is now Arctic Norway
hunting wild reindeer. These Komsa peoples left behind many rock engravings at
Alta, representations of a hunting life-style associated with their religious rituals (see right).
As the climate improved and the country became increasingly habitable, further
waves of settlers occupied the south, trading furs and amber for Central
European copper and tin for bronze implements. Over the millennia, more settled
way of life and the development of iron smelting enabled more extensive
agriculture, clearing of trees and construction of larger boats. By the 8th
century AD, Norway had become a country of small independent kingships such as
the Yngling dynastic chieftains who increasingly asserted a wider level of
control. 
Norse Vikings were landing on the Hebrides, Shetland,
Orkneys, Scottish mainland and Western Ireland, attacking in great fleets,
terrorising, murdering, enslaving or displacing local populations. Raiders soon
became settlers, and Norse Vikings founded Dublin as a colonising settlement in
836 AD. Viking expeditions increased the standard of living in Norway. The
economy was boosted by the spoils of war and trade which fostered the emergence
of an increasing merchant class; emigration released farmland, captured slaves provided farm labour, overseas contacts brought new farming methods
which improved nutrition. Viking society, with its pantheon of cruelly fickle Æsir
pagan deities such as Odin, Thor, and Freyr, was ruthlessly class-based with
clan chieftain, freemen and slaves (thralls). Every free man was entitled to
attend the local Thing (council), and the regional Allthing
settled disputes. 
Norway's first kings, unification of the kingdom, conversion to Christianity,
and decline of the Vikings (9~11th centuries): while most Viking
chieftains made their name in foreign raiding and conquest, Harald Hårfagre (Harald
Fair-Hair) (see right) won a decisive victory over rival
clans at Haugesund near modern Stavanger, giving him control in the late 9th century AD of the coastal regions of
Western Norway. With rival chieftains now forced either to become Harald's
vassals or to settle overseas, Norway was for the first time under unified rule,
as later recorded by the Icelandic chronicler Snorri Sturluson in the Norwegian
Kings' Saga. Harald's ruthless son Erik Bloodaxe struggled to hold the unified
kingdom together, and was outmanoeuvred by his youngest brother Håkon the Good
who secured the allegiance of other chieftains before returning from England
where he had been raised at the court of King Athelstan of Wessex. Erik fled to
Northumbria to become king of Viking York. Håkon,
who had been baptised a
Christian during his English upbringing brought the new faith on his return to
rule Norway. But most Vikings remained loyal to the Æsir gods, and when Håkon was defeated and
killed in 960 AD by Erik's son Harald Greycloak Eriksson with the support of the
Danish king Harald Bluetooth, paganism reasserted itself. In 995 AD Olav
Tryggvason, another Viking chieftain who had been Christianised in England,
seized the Norwegian throne and founded Trondheim from where he conducted a
brutal campaign against pagan rivals. Harald Bluetooth's pagan son Svein
Forkbeard who regarded Norway as his rightful inheritance defeated Olav in a sea
battle in the Skaggerak in 1000 AD and took over the Norwegian throne. In 1015
Olav Haraldsson (995~1030) sailed from England intent on conquering his
homeland; with Svein Forkbeard's son and successor Knut (King Canute of Denmark
and England) occupied in England, Olav Haraldsson (995~1030) seized the throne
of Norway and ruled justly for 12 years as Olav II, succeeding in introducing
Christianity permanently to Norway. Knut however invaded Norway and Olav was
killed at the Battle of Stiklestad north of Trondheim in 1030; his death was
regarded by Norwegian Christians as martyrdom; he was canonised as St Olav,
Norway's patron saint (see left), and his remains rest in Trondheim's Nidaros
Cathedral. His son Magnus the Good ruled until 1047 and was succeeded by Olav Haraldsson's
half-brother Harald Hardråde (Harald Hard-Ruler) (1015~66), so called from his
ruthless treatment of enemies, and the last of the Viking heroes. Not content
with ruling Norway by force of arms, Hardråde eyed the English throne. The death
of Edward the Confessor in 1006 gave him opportunity to sail to England, landing
near York with a massive fleet. His army was however roundly defeated by the
English at the Battle of Stanford Bridge under Harold Godwinson the new Saxon king
of England. Hardråde's death finally brought to an end the threat of Norwegian
conquest of England, not that Harold Godwinson survived for long, killed 3
weeks later after his weakened army trudged south to counter the Norman invasion
at the Battle of Hastings at the hands of William the Conqueror, himself of
Viking descent. But the power of the Norwegian Vikings was broken for ever.
Medieval consolidation, Norway's loss of
sovereignty, and the Kalmar Union, (11~14th centuries): Hardråde's son Olav Kyrre
(the Peaceful), who survived Stanford Bridge, returned to reign as king of
Norway until his death in 1093. Peace brought economic prosperity, cathedrals
were begun at Trondheim, Bergen and Oslo, lavishly decorated wooden stave
churches which survive today were built, and treaties with Denmark ensured
Norway's independence. Håkon
IV's reign in
the mid 13th century saw further consolidation of Norway's
position, and strengthening of its hold on the Faroe and Shetland islands and the
colonies in Greenland and Iceland. Under his successor, Magnus the Lawmender
(1238~80) law and order were maintained, trading prosperity flourished, and the nobility
remained supportive of the throne. Håkon V (1270~1319) was the last of Norway's
talented kings, further strengthening central government and consolidating royal
control of the far north. But his death brought twin threats to Norway's
independence: merchants of the Hanseatic League with strongholds in Bergen and
Oslo exerted a virtual trade monopoly with the crown dependent on mercantile
taxation. The second threat was dynastic since Håkon died without male heir. His
grandson Magnus Eriksson (see right), son of a Swedish nobleman, was crowned king of both
Sweden and Norway in 1319, in effect marking the end of Norway as an independent
kingdom until 1905. The Norwegian nobility rebelled against Magnus' rule and it
was agreed that his son Håkon should become king instead. Then in 1349 the Black
Death reached Norway and 2/3 of the population was killed by bubonic plague and
famine. At Håkon's death in 1380, his son Olav married to the Danish princess Margaret
(see left) became joint rulers of both Norway and Denmark. After Olav's early death in
1387, the resourceful Margaret continued the union and in 1397 engineered the Kalmar
Union under which
the nobility of Norway, Denmark and Sweden recognised herself as regent and
accepted Erik of Pomerania as king of all 3 countries.
of all the Danish kings of the period, he proved the
most sympathetic towards Norway, visiting the country a number of times,
improving its administration and founding new cities including Christiana (later
Oslo) laid out in model grid plan. 1660 marked a turning point in constitutional
arrangements governing Norway, with a powerful cabal of merchants and clergy
creating Frederik III (1609~70) (see left) absolute monarch of Denmark~Norway. Norway
benefitted from better defences, improved taxation and judiciary, but with
further centralisation of state administration, power was exercised exclusively
from Denmark, closely controlled by the absolute monarch. The early 18th century
brought more wars between Denmark and Sweden: the Danish king Frederik IV
(1699~1730) rashly attacked the Swedes whose king Karl XII was considered
Europe's most brilliant military strategist. As a
result the Danes were defeated
and Copenhagen was almost captured by the Swedes. Frederik again attacked the
Swedes who retaliated by invading southern Norway. In the ensuing wars Karl XII
was killed and peace was eventually restored in 1720. Despite increased trade
being focussed on Copenhagen, the
lasting peace now favoured Norway's economy; in 1760 trading monopolies were
removed enabling Norway to benefit from free trade, although the bulk of the
population remained impoverished particularly at times of poor harvests. Denmark~Norway remained neutral in the period leading up to the Napoleonic Wars,
and during this time Norway prospered from overseas trade with England. Denmark however
became drawn into the wars on the side of Napoleon, and as a result the
Royal Navy under Nelson bombarded Copenhagen in 1807 forcing the surrender of
the entire Danish~Norwegian fleet. Denmark in retaliation declared war on
England and Sweden, a move disastrous for the Norwegian economy with the English
blockade. Sensing that Denmark had backed the wrong side, the Norwegians
proposed a union of equals with Sweden hoping that joining the victors would
help restore commercial relations with England and that the new Swedish king
Karl XIV Johan (see right), formerly Jean-Baptiste Bernadotte one of Napoleon's marshals,
would deal with the Danes. Piqued by Napoleon's snubs, Karl-Johan judiciously
switched allegiances and, with the intention of achieving control of Norway, led
Sweden to join with Britain, Prussia and Russia against France and Denmark. The
Danes were defeated at Leipzig in 1813 and compelled by the Treaty of Kiel to
cede Norway to Sweden. Despite aspirations for constitutional independence, the Norwegians had
in 1814 exchanged 500 years of forced union
with Denmark for union with the Swedish kingdom which lasted until 1905. 
country enjoyed a degree of independence with Norwegians filling the
highest offices in government. His successors as Swedish king, Oscar I (1844~59)
and Karl XV (1859~72), both
favoured the pan-Scandinavianism political movement
reviving hopes of closer ties between Sweden, Norway and Denmark, but this ended
in 1864 when Swedish~Norwegian denial of military support to Denmark enabled
Prussia to annexe Schleswig-Holstein. The mid~late 19th century increase in the
country's prosperity brought important social and cultural changes; the
bourgeoisie, intelligentsia, artists, writers and musicians formed the nucleus of the National Romantic movement
which championed the uniqueness of the
Norwegian national identity. The Norwegian language and its folklore was
promoted restoring the country's cultural self-respect. In music Edvard Grieg
(1843~1907) (see right) was inspired by old Norwegian folk melodies, composing some of
best-known music for Ibsen's Peer Gynt. The artist Edvard Munch
(1863~1944) completed many of his major works in the 1880~90s, and the
internationally renowned dramatist Henrik Ibsen (1828~1906) (see left) returned to Oslo in
1891 after a prolonged period of self-imposed exile. The later 19th century saw a long and ultimately successful political
campaign to prise executive power from the Swedish king to the Storting,
and further agitation in the late 1880s by the supporters of Norwegian
independence compelled King Oscar II (1872~1907) to acquiesce in a plebiscite;
this resulted in an overwhelming majority in favour of dissolution of the union
which was confirmed by the Treaty of Karlstad in 1905. A second plebiscite
determined that independent Norway should be governed as a constitutional monarchy rather than
republic, and in November 1905 Prince Karl of Denmark (Edward VII of England's
son-in law) was elected to the Norwegian throne as Håkon VII (1872~1957); his
descendents still form the Norwegian ruling royal family. After some 600 years
Norway had at last re-achieved its independence as a sovereign state.
at
a time of further economic improvement brought about by the introduction of
hydro-electric power and a developing mercantile marine, the 3rd largest after
USA and UK. Social reforms resulted in accident and unemployment benefits,
improvements in work-place safety, the franchise extended to all men over 25 and
to women in 1913, reorganisation of the education system, and the emergence of a
strong trade union movement and a Labour party committed to radical change.
Norway remained neutral in WW1, and initially the economy benefited from demands
for its timber and shipping. But by 1916, German submarine warfare had begun to
impact on both Allied
and neutral shipping and by the end of the war Norway had lost half its
chartered tonnage and 2,000 merchant sailors. The Norwegian economy also
suffered after USA entered WW1; the strict trade embargo to cut off supplies
reaching Germany resulted in rationing and soaring cost of living in Norway. In
1920 Norway joined the newly formed League of Nations, but the late 1920s Great
Depression and decline in world trade led to a decreased demand for shipping
with inflation, unemployment and industrial unrest affecting Norway. Prohibition
had been introduced during WW1 and, following a 1919 referendum, it was retained
in an attempt to quell drunkenness and replaced in 1932 by the government
monopoly on the sale of wines and spirits which remains in place today. The
1930s brought further political power to the Labour party which under its leader
Johan Nygaardsvol (1879~1952) (see right) formed a government in coalition in
1935 with the more nationalistic Agrarian Party, one of whose members was Vidkun
Quisling. Frustrated by the democratic process Quisling founded the fascist
Nasjonal Samling but, despite his contacts with Hitler and Mussolini, he had
little support in Norway. The Labour Party presided over an improved economy
with lower unemployment, improved public infrastructure spending and social
welfare reforms. Norway was a vigorous member of the League of Nations and
supporter of disarmament and peace policies, and with inadequate defence, was
determined to remain neutral again when war broke out in 1939.
significant
sabotage act was the destruction of the heavy water plant at Rjukan which foiled
the German development of the atomic bomb. The Germans based the battleship
Tirpitz in Norwegian fjords to harass convoys and it was bombed by RAF
Lancasters at Alta and finally sunk at Tromsø aided by intelligence from the
Norwegian Resistance. German reprisals against resistance activity were brutally
severe: some 50,000 Norwegians out of a population of only 3 million were
imprisoned, deported as slave labour, or executed. The government-in-exile in
London continued to represent free Norway to the world, mobilising support on
behalf of the Allies. Most of the Norwegian merchant fleet and navy escaped to
Britain and aided the Arctic convoys supplying USSR. In winter 1944~45 the
advancing Red Army recaptured Finmark in the Arctic north; facing an escalating
two-front war, the retreating Germans destroyed everything in their path with a
scorched earth policy to delay the Soviet advance, causing untold suffering for
the civilian population. To prevent German reinforcement of their troops in the
north, the Resistance organised mass railway sabotage. With their control of
Norway crumbling, the Germans finally surrendered in May 1945, and 5 years to
the day since he had fled into exile, King Håkon returned to Norway on
June 7 1945. In October 1945 Quisling was tried and executed for treason along
with other leading collaborators, and a caretaker government by members of the
Resistance was replaced by a majority Labour government.
Post-war reconstruction (1945~1980):
Norway's war effort increased her international prestige, and the country became
one of the founding members of the UN, with Trygve Lie (see right), Norwegian
Foreign Minister from the 1940~45 government-in-exile, becoming its first
Secretary General in 1946. The Norwegian Communist Party achieved strong gains
in post-war elections and secured seats in government, but despite fears that
Norway would side with the Eastern Bloc, in 1949 the Storting
abandoned
its neutrality and voted to join NATO. But by the end of the war Norway
economically was on her knees: Finmark in the Arctic north had been devastated
and the country faced an enormous task of reconstruction. Despite wartime
losses, it initially seemed that the merchant navy and whaling fleet would
provide a partial solution, but industrial production was at a standstill and
the country struggled economically with post-war rationing continuing until
1952. Domestically there was general agreement about the form of social
reconstruction, and in 1948 the Storting almost unanimously passed laws
introducing the Welfare State. The 1949 elections returned a Labour government
with an even larger majority, and the Labour Party dominated Norwegian politics
throughout the following decade led by the much-respected Einar Gerhardsen (see
left), Norway's longest standing Prime Minister. As national prosperity
increased, society became more egalitarian, subsidies were paid to agricultural
and fisheries industries, income increased and a comprehensive social security
system helped eradicate poverty. The state operated important mining industries
and the national hydro-electric company, and built a large steel works at Mo-i-Rana
to help develop the economy of the devastated northern regions. Education
developed and new universities were opened in Bergen, Trondheim and Tromsø.
During the later 1960s and 1970s the political consensus began to break down,
with fragmentation of the centre and left wing parties, a series of coalition
governments, and debate over nuclear weapons and Norway's continued NATO
membership. Living standards continued to rise however and in the mid 1970s
oil
and gas were discovered in
the North Sea with the vast reserves making it clear that this bonanza could
finance up to 25% of
government expenditure.
Labour's
poor election showing was matched by the marked successes of extremist parties
of both political wings, the anti-NATO leftist Socialist Party and right-wing
anti-immigration Progress Party. The resultant fragile centre-right coalition
faced continuing conflict over EU membership leading to a return to power of
Brundtland's Labour administration. Despite political unanimity of support for
EU membership, a 1993 referendum narrowly rejected joining the EU encouraged by
the farming and fishing lobbies which feared the economic results. Brundtland's
government continued in office promising to shelve the whole EU membership issue
until at least 2000. An ungainly centre-right coalition managed to cling to
power from 2001, until replaced in the 2005 by a Labour coalition government now
led by the politically experienced Jens Stoltenberg. The first general election
since the far-right extremist Anders Behring
Breivik killed 77 people in an Oslo bombing and a gun attack at a Labour Party
youth camp, brought to power a centre-right coalition in 2013 led by the
Conservative Erna Solberg (see left) which includes a
strong membership of the right-wing anti-immigration Progress Party.
Welfare issues dominated the election campaign, as
well as Solberg's pledge to lower taxes and diversify the economy away from its
heavy reliance on oil revenue. With Norwegian politics now far more divided, it
is uncertain what Norway will make of its isolation from full EU membership and
whether or not there will be another referendum on the issue. With their
super-abundance of natural resources however, particularly North Sea oil and
gas, their economy remains as strong as ever and the country has a well-educated
work-force, progressive social policy and an average unemployment rate of 3.4%
that is the envy of other West European governments.
The former Norwegian Labour Prime Minister, Jens Stoltenberg (see right) has been elected to succeed Anders Fogh Rasmussen
(former Danish Prime Minister) as Secretary General of NATO
from October 2014. Stoltenberg has firmly criticized Russia over its
invasion of Crimea, calling Putin's actions unacceptable, threatening security and stability in
Europe and violating international law. After his election as NATO
Secretary-General, Stoltenberg emphasized that Russia's invasion of Ukraine was
a "brutal reminder of the necessity of NATO" and represented "the first time since the Second World War that a country
has annexed a territory belonging to another country". He has highlighted the
importance of Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty (the commitment of each
NATO member state to consider an armed attack against one member state to be an
armed attack against all), and NATO's responsibility to defend the
security of its eastern member states in particular. He has further stated that
Russia needs to be sanctioned over its actions in Ukraine, and has said that
possible NATO membership of Ukraine will be "a very important question in the
near future".
