Denne siden gir lenker til sider om EU og Norge
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This section will link to pages relating to EU and Norway. If you are a non-Scandinavian, you will probably be very puzzled by the Norwegian decision (in the referendum of 28. November 1994) to stay outside the EU. If you have met Norwegians sharing this majority view, you are probably even more surprised since they seem to be rather normal, and even quite competent and open-minded people, and not the ignorant and stupid isolationists and egoists portrayed in most of the media reports during the campaign. You will also observe that Norway is doing very well and has a very low unemployment rate etc. Very different from the gloomy picture of a Norway outside EU predicted by the "Yes"-side.(Very well captured by the cartoon below by Ellen Auensen from the "Yes"-side, and given to me as a generous gift from the "Europabevegelsen" - the "Yes"-organisation - on my 70th birthday, after the battle.)

The "Outside-country" as envisaged by the "Yes"-side
Drawing by Ellen Auensen

The explanation is simple.

The mass media were strongly dominated by the "Yes"-side in the six-year long battle (1988-94) about a Norwegian membership in the European Union (EU). Still the "No"-side won. Foreign journalists reported mainly what they got from the elites in the media, business community, diplomats and the politicians in the Labour and the Conservative parties, all giving very biased pictures, in particularly of their "No"-opponents and their motives, and of the facts relating to the decision to be made.

In these pages I will show you some material that present matters from the perspective of the winning "No"-side, as well as give you links to other useful sites on the web.

As I told you on the Home Page, I was the national leader of the "No to EU" organisation, at the time the largest and by far the most efficient political organisation in Norway. (Even the most ardent "Yes"-supporter will probably admit that.) "No to EU" is still alive and very active, but of course at a lower level than up to the referendum. You will find their logo at the top right of this page, next to the EU-flag used by the "Yes"-side as their logo.

You will find the organisation "No to EU" ("Nei til EU") at their website http://www.neitileu.no/

"Bærebjelkene"
The political platform uniting the broad No-front winning the 1994 referendum about Norwegian membership in the European Union was stated in the "Bærebjelke-statement". ( "Bærebjelke" is the Norwegian word for a main beam supporting the structure and weight of a building). The statement was unanimously accepted in this final version at the annual convention of "No to EU" in Norway, 29. November 1992. It had in earlier versions been used since 1989.

"We are not against Europe"
This is a link to a lecture that I delivered to a meeting of German business executives in Münich in 1995 on "We are not against Europe. We are against Norwegian membership in the European Union".

UKRUT

The artist Paal Hansen (© UKRUT, Oslo) contributed with a large number of drawings during the EU-battle, even with a special issue of a comic strip magazine "AstEUrix". In this special issue a key actor is "Nobelix". Some friends (?) tell me that the drawing below resembles me more than the photos that I so carefully have selected for these pages:

Nobelix

Below is Paal's greetings last Xmas, with a number of EU-relevant items:

Happy Xmas 1998

- The Belgian Blue cow (that cannot give birth without a cesarean)
- The British cow (that has had some tough years)
- The "goodbye"-letter from the RENA factory that was denied further life by the EEA authorities
- The famous Norwegian "nisselue" (gnome's cap), allegedly (by the "Yes"-camp) worn by all "No"-supporters
- etc., etc.

Her kommer stoff og lenker til sider om EU og Norge

Foreløpig (99-07-15, kl 17:30) er det få lenker:

- Et foredrag på engelsk som gir en orientering om EU-kampen.

Mer kommer snart!

Og her er iallfall en lenke til Nei til EUs hjemmeside med svært meget bra stoff!