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Solveig:
There was no point other than the fact that I believe the EU is too large for a small nation to have any meaningful influence.

Poland might disagree with that.

by ThatBritGuy (thatbritguy (at) googlemail.com) on Sat Oct 20th, 2007 at 07:48:15 PM EST
[ Parent ]
Poland??  

Poland has almost 39 million people.  Norway has just over 4.5 million.  

by Solveig (link2ageataol.com) on Sat Oct 20th, 2007 at 08:39:39 PM EST
[ Parent ]
From past events, TBG could have named Denmark (5.45 million) or Ireland (4.3 million), too.

However, what's this Norway-against-everyone-else attitude? Can't you imagine Norway joining up, say, with other Scandinavian countries? That way, due to the higher-than-proportional voting power of smaller EU countries, the Scandinavian block would have 31 (Nice system, assuming 7 for Norway), vs. 27 for Poland and 29 for the four bigs.

Also consider a hypothetical EU-17 in 1996, with Norway and Switzerland as members (3 and 4 seats under the Maastricht system). Then the Scandinavians + Switzerland would have 17 votes (on some issues they could certainly count on Austria too, making it 21), vs. 10 for the four bigs; and all small countries would sum up to 46.

*Lunatic*, n.
One whose delusions are out of fashion.

by DoDo on Sun Oct 21st, 2007 at 06:52:04 AM EST
[ Parent ]
DoDo:
what's this Norway-against-everyone-else attitude?

I think you misunderstand my sentiment.  I do not see myself as having a 'Norway against everybody else' attitude. However, I have perhaps interpreted some of the replies to my posts as rather confrontational or "in your face". But no doubt that's because I am unfamiliar with online discussions.  

DoDo:

Can't you imagine Norway joining up, say, with other Scandinavian countries?

Norway works tirelessly with its neighbours - within the Nordic Council, in the EU parliament (and in 'the corridors of the EU'), and in many other international fora.  These co-operation processes are maybe not entirely visible to everyone, but they are going on - all the time.

The hypothetical mathematics of Scandinavian 'block voting' within the EU is irrelevant, IMO because none of them currently see anything to gain from further integration.    

   

by Solveig (link2ageataol.com) on Sun Oct 21st, 2007 at 09:43:11 AM EST
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