What if the EU succeeds? If Norway were a business, the board would have laid out a new strategy – the Altinget

Imagine that you manage a company that is totally dependent on a customer. The collaboration with the customer has gone well for many years, and your company has high profits and well-paid employees. One day the customer tells you that they have changed their strategy and will gradually stop buying your product. In 15 years, they expect to buy a small fraction of today’s volume. “No hard feelings, thanks for good cooperation through thick and thin, but that’s where we’re going, and the sooner the better,” they say.

What are you doing? Do you think it will pass? You think they probably didn’t mean it? Are you investing in increased production?

This is Norway’s relationship with the EU, just in a slightly different way. Norway sells the vast majority of our oil and gas to the EU. In February, the EU’s plan for emission cuts before 2040 came out. As the figure shows; by 2040 they intend to stop buying oil and gas, also from Norway. Yes, not quite, but almost.

Photo: European Trade Union Institute

Norway’s political response is silence. Here the discussion proceeds as before. Some will look for more, others will look for less. Some will build fast, while others will let it happen by itself.

Collective denial?

Nobody seems to take the EU’s message seriously. Perhaps it is a collective denial. Those who like the EU also tend to like oil and industry. The most climate-conscious on the left do not like the EU, “the capitalist stronghold”. The climate deniers largely also deny the EU. Those of us who swear by an EU-positive environmental agenda are probably just too few and odd.

If Norway were a company, the board would have put in place a new strategy.

Nils-Ola Widme
Columnist in the Alting and business policy director, Abelia

If Norway were a company, the board would have put in place a new strategy. They would make a plan to either shut down the company, or to develop new market opportunities. Fortunately, the first option is not an option for Norway, but what happens to the second?

Yes, the government will answer; We have both an offshore wind strategy, various industrial ventures and we are even working on a road map for the technology industry. In addition, we increase the allocations to the municipalities and to the healthcare system, and ensure that the public sector can take care of most of the workforce that is left over, should the EU prove to be serious. And we have had tax incentives for oil exploration and the development of new fields for so long that we just have to hope that the EU – like now – needs all the gas we can sell. This gives the country high incomes and well-paid jobs in both oil extraction and related industry. The tone remains that we believe the world will need oil for decades to come.

Not energy that drives value creation

The paradox of the situation is that it seems as if we in Norway believe that the world has not changed fundamentally in the last 15 years, with financial crisis, debt crisis and pandemic. Today, it is no longer energy that drives value creation, but technology.

The lesson is that new technology creates new giants, while oil customers say they want to get out of that industry.

Nils-Ola Widme
Columnist in the Alting and business policy director, Abelia

In 2008, Exxon was the world’s most valuable company. Today they are in 14th place. Microsoft and the big IT giants have not only taken the place of oil and industry on the ladder. The largest companies are also worth around ten times more than the largest were in 2008. In 2010, Statoil was by far Scandinavia’s largest company, ahead of a shipping company and a car factory. The pharmaceutical company Novo Nordisk is today Scandinavia’s largest company and is approx. 7 times more valuable than Equinor. The lesson is that new technology creates new giants, while oil customers say they want to get out of that industry.

The EU is the world’s most advanced political power

It is time to take the EU seriously. They often do not succeed completely. And they often take longer to achieve their goals than they plan. But the reality is that where the USA is the world’s foremost source of innovation and business development, the EU is the world’s most advanced political power.

They will succeed. Norway has approx. 15 years to come up with something that is as profitable as producing oil and gas. The new companies must not only be green. They must also be incredibly profitable, if Norway is not to fall far off the list of “one of the world’s richest countries”.

The very first thing we have to do is attract the very smartest people here. Don’t chase them away.

Norway has approx. 15 years to come up with something that is as profitable as producing oil and gas.

Nils-Ola Widme
Columnist in the Alting and business policy director, Abelia