The “crazy world” shaped by US President Donald Trump and China is prompting Norway to reassess its relationship with the EU after two failed attempts to join the bloc.
The continent’s leading oil and gas producer is part of the EU’s single market but it remains outside the bloc after voting “No” to accession in the 1970s and the 1990s. Norwegians opposed membership because of a perception that their fishing industry would be at a disadvantage if ruled by Brussels. Seafood is Norway’s largest export sector after fossil fuels.
“We said no in 1972 because of fish and again in 1994, it was very much about fish. Fish and agriculture,” foreign minister Espen Barth Eide told the FT. Those issues became so divisive that they “broke up marriages and families”, leaving Norwegians with “PTSD”, he said.