journal of european integration history revue d'histoire de l ...

98
Hans-Otto Frøland
of costs and benefits and Norwegian authorities wished to retain the status quo by
strengthening EFTA.
Bringing agriculture into the negotiations would have changed the balance sheet
negatively. When taking up the negotiations among the Seven which subsequently
led to EFTA, the minister for Agriculture, Harald Løbak, informed about the major
obstacle to any Nordic solution, i.e. “the structure of our agriculture”. 66 Having ratified
the Stockholm convention the authorities never wanted to include agriculture
in EFTA. The export value of Norwegian agricultural produce was small. Out of a
total value creation in agriculture of NOK 1 932 million in 1961, the export value
amounted to NOK 69 million. 67 This generally comprised exports required to regulate
domestic prices. Even though increasing exports might be possible, many believed
that Norwegian agriculture did not have such possibilities. The government
therefore resisted Danish attempts to liberalise agricultural regulations in EFTA.
When the Danes managed to put forward sensible arguments, the Norwegians
would show “unbinding obligingness”, to use the wordings of Trade Minister Kåre
Willoch when reporting back to the Extended Foreign Policy and Constitutional
Committee after an EFTA ministerial meeting. 68
Also the failed NORDEK scheme was supposed to change the balance. For the
manufacturing industry it would add few benefits beyond the EFTA regulations,
while it certainly would increase the costs for the primary industries. This was
clearly expressed by Finn Moe, a most influential Labour Party politician, when
stating, in the Extended Foreign Policy and Constitutional Committee, why he was
against the Danish initiative: there would be “no balance between the concessions
to be made by Norwegian agriculture and the advantages to be attained by industry”.
69 Norway did not welcome the Danish initiative and saw it as a move to increase
Danish agricultural exports. Before the Nordic Premiers met in Copenhagen
in March 1968 the Trade minister was advised that Norwegian interests would be
best served if future Nordic solutions were kept within the EFTA framework. 70 Negotiations
on NORDEK nevertheless commenced and the Danes asked for a common
agricultural policy. In January 1969, after the Danish government had argued
that the Nordic countries should allow increased supplementary imports from Denmark,
Willoch, minister of Trade and probably the most liberal minister of the
non-Socialist coalition, concluded in frustration:
“The only thing that can really be given economically and socially in the Nordic
countries would be Danish and Swedish subsidies to Norwegian agriculture”. 71
66. SA, SUUKK, Minutes of 2 February 1959, p.25.
67. CENTRAL BUREAU OF STATISTICS OF NORWAY, Norwegian Historical Statistics, Oslo,
1968, pp.95 & 268.
68. SA, SUUKK, Minutes of 4 November 1965, p.16.
69. SA, SUUKK, Minutes of 5 February 1968, pp.10 ff.
70. UD, 44.3.4.A, vol.1, Note for the minister of Trade before the meeting of Nordic premiers in Copenhagen
on 11 March, 6 March 1968.
71. SA, SUUK, Minutes of 28 January 1969, p.42.