That's partly because recent enlargements, though they increased the weight of small EU members, did so by bringing in governments uninterested in such progressive change and populations too cynical to even expect this of them. (I say this as a sad inhabitant of one.)

I don't buy that. The transparency and accountability problem was there long before the expansion. I don't know whether the expansion made a difference one way or the other (on the one hand, it diluted the power of the GER-FRA-UK axis, OTOH it brought in a host of problems, like the Cyprus/Turkey conflict and the Polish Twins and their happy gang of neo-McCarthyists).

On an even darker note: if the populations had been more serious about this, they would have forced their governments to be more serous about pushing it.

Precisely what tools do you suggest that we use to pitch the notion of accountability to our political caste? Every time we turn down an expansion, as we did with the €, it is interpreted as a combination of ignorance and nationalism by virtually all the major political parties, so that's evidently not a viable way of affecting change (well, it'll affect change, but in some pretty random directions). If you're suggesting prioritizing the Union over domestic issues for parliamentary votes, you're in for a rude surprise.

In every survey in which the Danish population is asked about the reasons for its euroskepticism, roughly half the nay-sayers cite lack of transparency and accountability, or some proxy therefore such as bureaucracy or corruption. Which suggests to me that if our Dear Leaders would stop sitting on their collective hands and actually go hell-for-leather in support of substantial reforms to increase transparency, we'd poll a solid majority in favour of the Union. Which is what our political class claims to desire. Yet it seems hell-bent on remaining in the current state of willful ignorance, so precisely what tools do we have left? This is not a rhetorical question, by the way, I would genuinely like to know.

In my view, there is a quality of self-fulfilling prophecy about Scandinavian Euroscepticism.

Perhaps so, but OTOH it's a bit much to expect us to give up a functioning and reasonably transparent system in order to try to make the Union work - especially when, if history is anything to judge by, it's unlikely to work. Add in the fact that our politicians seem more interested in making the people fit the union (euphemistically termed 'selling the Union' is if it were some cheap fast-food that one could pitch in an advertisement), rather than in attempting to make the Union fit the people, and I can't say I blame those of my fellow citizens who wish a pox on the new Treaty.

<rant>

Furthermore, take a look at the way this new treaty was made: Some commission cooks up a travesty of a constitution (behind closed doors, I might add) that is actually a mish-mash of constitutional bits, concrete policy initiatives and vague statements of intent, watered down with copious application of diplomat-speak, so as to make it essentially (and unnecessarily) unreadable.*

Our good-for-nothing politicians then have sheer gall to be surprised when the voters reject that abomination as an insult to their intelligence. Furthermore, they then go on to figure out ways to repackage and resell essentially the same treaty in a new wrapping - except this time the take a quite inordinate amount of care to surgically excise the bits and pieces that would make referendums constitutionally mandated. And they even have the chutzpah to tell us in so many words that that's what they're doing. Put in those terms, is it still hard to understand that some people might get the impression that all those smiling men in suits give less than a fart in a flashbulb what the citizens think?

*Take the preamble, as an example. Instead of simply saying something nice and plain and readable like 'We the duly elected representatives of the People of the undersigned states, in order to form a more perfect Union enact this treaty to take immediate effect in all territories and jurisdictions of the undersigned states' followed by a list of signatures and countries, it contained the next best thing to three pages of utter crap about the deep and significant cultural ancestry of Europe - hell, it was all that some of the saner governments could do to prevent the inclusion of Europe's 'Christian Values' from making the cut!

</rant>

- Jake

Friends come and go. Enemies accumulate.

Wait, it's here, also involved Gjermund E Jansen, and it must be admitted the two made some rather good points on their side.

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

But the fact is, neither Norway nor Switzerland need the EU, nor does the EU need them. I don't see why as a matter of principle the EU should seek to include any given country. If they want to join and meet the acquis, they should be allowed in. If they don't want to join we shouldn't worry about it, and if they want to but don't meet the acquis it's their own problem to solve.

We have met the enemy, and it is us — Pogo

"We're richer and braver and smarter than the rest of you. We don't need you."

That is not what I meant, Jerome. I was thinking of our 'stubborness', or you could call it resilience...

We have fought hard and long for our independence - 400 years under Denmark, 100 years with Sweden, and the German occupation which is still within living memory.  Giving up this independence is not something we would do lightly.

Frankly, the majority of Norwegians see the present EU as a 'power' that would adversely affect our egalitarian values, and way of life.  Maybe we believe that by staying outside, but still participating earnestly (which we do! We sometimes introduce EU policy before the EU does...), we may have some small positive influence.

As for being rich, yes we are now, but at the time of the first referendum in 1972, we were not. (After WW2 we were the poorest country in Europe - it took Marshall help and a few decades hard work and innovative policies to get our economy moving.)

Arrogance, yes we may have a touch of that...but so do many other European countries...the French included, as you admit.  

Norwegian arrogance, as I see it, is about 'look at us, we have managed to share our country's wealth fairly evenly, what have you done'?