Have you heard of “Festung Europa”? A Europe without internal borders. Who build walls to keep the rest of the world out. As a quasi-EU member, through the EEA agreement, Norway is inside this fortress.
The Schengen Agreement, which we introduced in 2001, has free movement of people across national borders within Europe and rigid visa requirements for others as a guiding principle. Frontex, the EU’s border and coast guard agency, which we joined in 2005, looks after the EU’s external borders and must ensure that no unwanted people enter Europe.
For Norway both Schengen and Frontex have been failures.
Schengen destroys our national labor market and weakens our own self-preservation. Immigrants willing to work are more attractive than “demanding” Norwegians. With labor immigration, the immigrants’ homeland loses valuable labour. Why train skilled workers in Norway when we can import them cheaper from, for example, Eastern Europe? A globalized the labor market internationalizes the wage differences. For people in low-wage occupations, wages are kept down. The supply of labor is greater than the demand. People in the top echelon have few boundaries, whether they work in private or public business. Greed wins. In the partially state-owned DnB, director Kjerstin Braathen was paid NOK 15.8 million for 2023. That is roughly 7 times more than the prime minister and 30 times more than a normal bank employee. With the free flow of people, crime across national borders also increases. International gangs smuggle drugs, engage in human trafficking, promote social dumping and contract murder. Billions are laundered.
Frontex has never been able to prevent the flow of refugees from Asia/Africa to Europe, or that thousands of refugees drown in the Mediterranean every year. The EU’s counter-measures, including financial aid to countries in North Africa, have largely been unsuccessful. It is rather that the West’s policy is contributing to an increased flow of refugees.
Both Iraq, Libya and Syria were in their time prosperous Arab states. The mistake was that they all had oil resources and – leaders who acted too independently vis-à-vis the USA/EU. As a consequence, the countries were exposed to Western sanctions and boycotts. Vital medicines and other necessary goods became impossible to obtain. People’s lives worsened, millions chose to flee. When Western subversion did not lead to regime change, full-scale invasion or so-called civil war “springs” came. With even more refugees as a result.
With Gadaffi’s Libya, Africa’s foremost welfare state, the EU had effective agreements to stop the flow of refugees to Europe. Jens Stoltenberg and Norwegian bombs, left countries and agreements in ruins. NATO’s – and Norway’s – war in impoverished Afghanistan has resulted in over 5 million refugees.
Today is the war in Ukraine the cause of the largest refugee flow in Europe. To escape the horrors of war, Ukrainians flee both east and west. So far over 6 million.
As refugees, Ukrainians are privileged. They get automatic and quick residence, and have almost been regarded as heroes. In the same way as the refugees from Eastern Europe during the “cold war”. For most others, the journey to a better future takes years. For many, it ends in death, depravity or deportation.
What is the similarity between wealthy Russian oligarchs, Nigerian internet fraudsters, Arab oil sheikhs, Colombian drug traffickers or Chinese businessmen? With millions in “black” wealth, they can all become EU citizens and gain visa-free entry to, among other places, Norway. Forget the Mediterranean and cumbersome application procedures. Well-paid lawyers fix everything. The EU countries Malta, Portugal, Spain, Greece, Austria, Bulgaria, Latvia and Cyprus offer favorable visa arrangements. For a minimum of NOK 3-4 million, even the most suspicious can get residence, even without knowledge of their new homeland, culture or language.
Especially Malta has been in the spotlight because of its citizenship schemes. A few years ago, it was a goal for the government that their leading politicians should become wealthy within a ten-year period. In collaboration with the international law firm Henley&Partners, they collected millions through the sale of so-called “Golden Visas”.
Journalist Caruana Galiza revealed all this. She was killed by a car bomb in 2017.
Norway’s richest, John Fredriksen, has long since emigrated and become a Cypriot. He has been followed by many others, including Kjell Inge Røkke, formerly a declared social democrat, now living in Switzerland. The wealthy do not flee out of necessity, but because they do not want to pay taxes on wealth which – often with large government subsidies – has been earned in Norway .
Their tax rate has always been far lower than for most people. Rich people who fly out and take their wealth with them contribute to the impoverishment of the country they come from. This is particularly bad if the home country is poor and needs investment. When the rich disappear and salt the money down in tax havens, neither development nor jobs are created.
How to prevent that fewer flee from poverty – or because of wealth?
– Through more surveillance, more patrol boats, larger border police and forced repatriation? As, for example, with measures that Sylvi Listhaug introduced when she was Minister of Justice? Extensive investigative work to expose refugees who had obtained residence/stakeholder citizenship through fraud”. There must be consequences for people who give incorrect information or lie…”, was the review melody. The argument sounds reasonable, but depriving well-integrated refugees of their new homeland after years of residence is inhumane. Also when they came here as children, and are not to blame for their parents’ choices. These days, the Directorate of Immigration, UDI, dismisses over 1,000 such cases because the results have not been in proportion to the use of resources. The Conservative Party and FrP rage. Perhaps they should instead scrutinize their own politicians’ lies and untruths – which rarely have consequences?
– Through to work for a fairer world where most people can more easily build the future in their own country? Then non-interference in internal affairs and trade on equal terms is required. For a Europe and the USA, with market liberalism, profit and an almost god-given right to create legal systems and dominate the world, this will be a long and demanding process. Many life belts need to be tightened. The thinking must be changed. From personal/national gain to the common good. Both within and outside our own national borders.
In the meantime maybe something can be done:
- Faster processing time for applications for residence.
- Financial support for refugees who wish to return and re-establish themselves in their home countries.
- Abolish tax exemption and residence permit for wealthy refugees.
- No boycotts, sanctions and restrictions against the refugees’ home countries.
- Assist in creating jobs and developing infrastructure and health care in countries with a large proportion of refugees.
- Increase efforts for worldwide peace and justice.
When it when it comes to today’s immigration and emigration, most of it is chaos.
Powerful forces profit grossly from today’s refugee situation. Money gives power and removes boundaries. For Norway as an EU member, even short-term improvement measures will be difficult. Europe’s old colonial powers still build their prosperity on exploitation, not equality. We are dragged along. With its oil fund money bin, today’s Norway has greater opportunities than most to create a better world. Not through continued investments in arms production, arms exports and war, but through measures that improve the living situation of ordinary people and create hope for the future.
Jan Christensen
This article was published in the newsletter of Drammen no to the EU.
