In 1998, Norway was a small yet prosperous country located in Northern Europe. It had a population of around 4.5 million people and its capital city was Oslo. The economy of Norway in 1998 was largely based on the oil and gas industry with its main exports including petroleum products, machinery and fish whilst imports included consumer goods, foodstuffs and chemicals. In terms of infrastructure, Norway had an extensive transportation network with well-maintained roads and airports as well as access to international shipping routes. Education levels were high with most children attending school until at least age 16. Health care was also excellent with access to public health services available to most people. Despite its small size, Norway is renowned for its diverse landscapes ranging from fjords to glaciers as well as its vibrant cities such as Bergen which are filled with art galleries, museums and parks. See dentistrymyth for Norway in the year of 2015.
Yearbook 1998
Norway. The surplus of oil on the world market led to record low oil prices during the year, which hit the Norwegian economy hard. An estimated plus in the current account balance of SEK 94 billion. for 1998 was about to be wiped out. According to Countryaah, the capital of Norway is Oslo. The Norwegian krone fell sharply in value and the Riksbank raised the interest rate seven times before the attempts to defend the krone exchange rate were abandoned. The Oslo Stock Exchange fell more than other leading exchanges in the world. At the same time, the low unemployment rate of 3.3% created wage increases of 6%, almost twice as high as that of the country’s trading partners.
The currency crisis during the summer put the minority government under severe pressure and at the end of August, Prime Minister Kjell Magne Bondevik was laid off for a depressed response due to overwork. Despite speculation that he would be forced to resign, Bondevik returned to the budget debate in the Storting just a few weeks ago. His absence had then seemed to be welding on the government parties, which under the pressure of declining opinion figures previously marked against each other in their respective heart issues.
The center government with the Christian People’s Party, the Center Party and the Venstre proposed strong austerity measures in the autumn budget. But a new budget deal with Høyre and the Progress Party appeared to be impossible, as the government’s proposal included tax and fee increases of SEK 4 billion. The Labor Party, for its part, refused to attend the government because of the proposal for custody grants, which in the new budget were extended from one-year olds to two-year-olds. Negotiations in the parliament broke down. The Labor Party was weathered by power and at the party congress at the end of November, party leader Thorbjørn Jagland presented a program adapted for budget compromise with Høyre. Norway looked to be heading for a historic crisis settlement between the two traditional political opponents.
But Jagland’s play caused the government to back down. Most of the tax and fee increases were abolished and a number of cuts were made to meet the Høyre and the Progress Party. The government crisis was averted and the two right-wing parties voted in the parliament for the center’s budget proposals. The government’s internal difficulties became apparent again in November, when several of the Center Party’s government ministers opposed the veterinary agreement that the government itself negotiated with the EU. The plans for Norwegian accession to the EU’s border cooperation, the Schengen Agreement, were also criticized by leading center teams.
Norway expelled two Russian diplomats at the beginning of the year and declared three others undesirable. The Russians were accused of trying to recruit Norwegians to Russian intelligence service. Russia responded by expelling two Norwegian diplomats.
2011 Right-wing terror in Norway
- Abbreviationfinder: What does NOR stand for in geography? Here, this 3 letter acronym refers to the country of Norway.
On July 22, 2011, a right-wing terrorist blew the Norwegian government chancellor in downtown Oslo. The terrorist operation cost 8 lives. The goal was to kill the country’s prime minister, Jens Stoltenberg, but this one worked this day at home. The terrorist then went to the small island of Utøya near Oslo, where the Social Democratic Youth Federation AUF was running its summer camp. Here he executed 79 young Social Democrats before being arrested by police. Earlier in the day, Norway’s former prime minister Gro Harlem Brundtland had spoken at the summer camp, and she was in fact the terrorist’s primary target, but he did not know her schedule and she had left before he arrived on the island.
The right-wing terrorist was manufactured by right-wing radicals in Norway, Denmark and other parts of Europe, but that was not the case now. The terrorist campaign had been planned for 10 years and along the way he had been a member of the Danish People’s Partysister party in Norway, Progress Party. The terrorist hatred had initially been directed at refugees and immigrants, but in the years leading up to the terrorist campaign, he also targeted the Norwegian social democracy and the left, which he saw as those responsible for Norway being developing into a modern multicultural society. The hatred was therefore mainly aimed at Gro Harlem Brundtland. The difference between Norwegian and Danish social democracy was that while the Danish party had pursued an immigrant-hostile policy since the 1990s, the Norwegian party had conducted an open policy against the world and its conflicts.
The terrorist campaign in Norway was a preliminary culmination of 15-20 years of European development of right-wing violence and rhetoric aimed at refugees and immigrants. After the terrorist operation, however, many of the European parties for tactical reasons gave way to the terror. However, this did not apply to the neo-Nazi Lega Nord in Italy, or the Danish People’s Party, whose leader declared that the party would unreservedly continue its rhetoric of violence against refugees and immigrants. The terror campaign also did not make a big impression on the Danish “development minister” Søren Pind, who compared it with the protests against a wind turbine testing center in Thy. Denmark was characterized by the terrorist as a “pattern country”, and the Danish VKO government had also just in 10 led the hate policy aimed at refugees and immigrants, the terrorist called for in Norway.
Danish media were therefore also queuing up to publish the terrorist’s 1500-page cookbook on how to carry out terrorist actions. However, the DR subsequently cut out 50 pages of bomb making guidance. The cookbook was also passed on by, among others. Berlingske Tidende and Ekstrebladet. The message for Europe’s right-wing madmen was: “kill 80 of the red and get your own pulpit in the Danish media for inspiration to others”. The Norwegian NRK refused to grant the terrorist this rostrum. Danish media responded that the terrorist’s freedom of expression was otherwise violated. “The right to expression is above all else”. In Denmark this right also has the right to life.
The chairman of the Norwegian Nobel Committee, Thorbjørn Jagland, subsequently warned European politicians – with a special address to British Prime Minister David Cameron – whether they frequently promote the hatred of refugees and immigrants, thus fueling the right-wing terror. Four months earlier, during a speech in Munich, Cameron had declared that the multicultural state had failed in Britain. It promptly prompted the chairman of the British neo-Nazi party GDP, Nick Griffin, to cheer: “it is a great leap for our ideas into mainstream politics”.
Following the terrorist campaign, the Norwegian intelligence service PST was criticized for ignoring the Norwegian right wing in general and the terrorist in particular in its previous analyzes. Otherwise, there were enough signals to follow. He had a weapons permit for an automatic weapon and a Glock pistol, both used during the Utøya massacre, he had previously purchased 5 tons of fertilizer used during the attack on the Oslo Chancellor’s Office, and he was a diligent blogger with violent attitudes on the radical right. media. But as in Denmark, the intelligence service has for decades solely concentrated on spying on the left, social democracy and movements, and at the same time turned a blind eye to the right. In Norway, the scandal ended up being so great that politicians ended up shutting down the heavily burdened POT, and instead created the PST. But that apparently didn’t help. In Denmark it continuesPET ‘s cooperation with and sympathy for the radical right wing, as the PET Commission Report of 2009 documented, and since then it has been documented that PET continues its work to protect the radical Danish right wing.
The terrorist campaign in Norway confirmed that the threat to European societies does not come from refugees and immigrants, but from the radicalized right wing, whose violence policy is increasingly merging with the prevailing political discourse. Not only in Denmark and the UK, but also in the Netherlands, Finland, Austria, Italy, France and Hungary.
The terrorist Breivik was sentenced to 21 years in prison under enormous Danish media presence, which can subsequently be extended for periods of 5 years.
In July 2012, the government enacted emergency law to force oil workers back into work after a 16-day strike over pensions.
In February 2013, a Norwegian court sentenced Sadi Bugingo to 21 years in prison for his involvement in the 1994 Rwanda genocide.
In September 2013, Norway and the EU signed a new agreement on fishing quotas.
The September 2013 parliamentary elections became a disaster for the left. Red 0.3% went back to 1.1%; The Socialist Left Party declined 2.1% and came in at 4.1% just above the threshold; The Labor Party went back 4.5% to 30.8%. The consequence was that the narrow majority that had ruled Norway in the previous 4 years had fallen. The Right, in turn, went up 9.6% to 26.8%, while the Progress Party went 6.6% back to 16.3% and thus no longer the country’s second largest party. 3 smaller bourgeois parties got a total of 16.3%. These include the Left that crossed the barrier. As a result of the election, a minority government was formed between the Right and the Progressive Party and with the support of the small bourgeois parties. Prime Minister Erna Solberg declared that the government’s main goal was to implement tax cuts and reduce the size of the state.
In October 2014, Jens Stoltenberg became Secretary General of NATO. One of Stoltenberg’s first priorities was to downplay the war rhetoric aimed at Russia, which former Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen had practiced for the last six months of his tenure. While Denmark had been a belligerent in international relations for 20 years, Norway has traditionally a peace-oriented attitude to these relations.
At the end of 2014, the Norwegian oil fund had funds equivalent to DKK 870 billion. US $ corresponding to US $ 173,000 per resident. Several oil countries sought to learn from Norway to prepare for a future where they would no longer be able to finance society’s spending on oil and gas production.
