(THIS ARTICLE IS MACHINE TRANSLATED by Google from Norwegian)
This week, negotiations started on the new EEA quota, which will apply from 2009 to 2014. Given the recent enlargements of the EU with the member states of Bulgaria and Romania, and further deepening of the internal market, we must expect to pay significantly more in the years to come.
Today, Norway pays around two billion kroner annually in accordance with the five-year agreement on the EFTA countries' EEA contribution. This agreement is Norway, Liechtenstein and Iceland's contribution to economic and social equalization in the EU. It is claimed that the EU will demand that Norway increase its share by almost 50 percent in the next agreement, which enters into force on 1 May 2009. In other words, an increase from two billion to three billion annually.
The purpose of the EEA funds is identical to the basic idea behind EU enlargements. The intention is not only to anchor Europe's previous dictatorships in democratic governance and to integrate them politically, but also to lift member states financially and to ensure that everyone benefits from economic growth, increased employment and prosperity. As the EFTA countries negotiated the EEA Agreement in 1992, it was therefore considered fair and reasonable for the rich EFTA countries to contribute financially in this process. For this reason, the EEA Agreement provided for a financial contribution to economic and social equalization, which would apply for the first five years of the life of the agreement.
In 1996, the EU asked for the grant to be extended beyond these first five years, which Norway, together with Iceland and Liechtenstein, tried to oppose. This was (of course) very poorly received in the EU and led to Spain blocking the introduction of new EU directives into the EEA agreement for almost three months. The EU's demonstration of power was not very pretty, but from a historical perspective we should be glad it went as it did, because it had not looked pretty if Norway had not contributed financially to the former communist countries taking part in the EU's historic enough to lift millions of people out of more or less severe poverty.
As a result of the EU's east enlargement in 2004, which included 10 new member countries in the European Economic Area, the EEA agreement was revised and the price for Norway's share doubled. When Bulgaria and Romania became members last year, the price increased by another billion, but this time also Norway lagged with the result that the EU put the entire EEA agreement on hold until Norway accepted the EU's requirements.
Statistics Norway has stated that Norway's amounts represent less than one tenth of the export revenues Norwegian companies earn in the newly opened markets. The Norwegian contribution also corresponds to less than half of the EU contingent for Sweden – a country that otherwise has a deficit that quite accurately corresponds to the surplus of our own oil wealth. That we get away cheap should therefore be beyond any doubt.
Last week, it was announced through an evaluation report conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PwC), that almost 10 and 30 percent of the 10 billion kroner Norway provides disappears as a result of inflation and fluctuations in the exchange rate while the case is being processed. The big question in connection with the renegotiation of the EEA agreement should therefore not be how much we, as the world's richest country, should pay, but how this money is best managed.
European Youth wants some of the funds to go to environmental projects in Eastern Europe, such as CO2 purification of coal-fired power plants in Poland, but also that we contribute more than before to the EU's own budgets. This is to avoid the current situation, where Norway's contribution in many countries is perceived as straitjacket, in addition to the fact that it will pay to leave the administration to an apparatus that has both more experience and expertise in the field than we have. If we were to lose control, it would only be an expression of the degree of political influence we have already given up through the EEA agreement.
