THE ZIG‐ZAG COURSE OF THE NORDEK NEGOTIATIONS
Authors: Wicklund Claes 
Published: April 2008

The current debate on expanded economic cooperation in the Nordic countries has been going on for more than two years. The Prime Ministers of the four countries have met on at least ten occasions. The government officials have presented three extensive reports with concrete proposals. The Nordic Council has devoted the bulk of its last three sessions to this question. The Nordic daily press has produced thousands of editorials and a substantially larger number of news articles on the subject. The interest organizations have examined the concrete proposals and have criticized or commended them from their point of view. The political parties have list ell to and participated in the debate, made tactical moves, aggregated conflicting views and on the basis of these have formulated new standpoints. Less is known, however, about public opinion concerning the Nordek plans, but a couple of opinion polls in Denmark and Finland provide some indication.

According to a Danish poll published in February 1969, 61 % of the respondents in a representative sample of the Danish population were positive toward an expanded economic cooperation among the Nordic countries, while only 5% were against it. In another poll presented in September the Same year, 43% of the respondents preferred Danish membership in the EEC along with Great Britain to a Nordic economic union. 26 % answered positively to the question of whether Denmark ought to join the EEC even if Great Britain did not. A larger proportion or 33% preferred a Nordic economic union under the condition that Britain did not join the EEC.

Over half of the respondents in a Finnish opinion poll conducted at the end of January 1970 believed that Nordek would have predominantly positive effects, while 25% were of the opinion that the advantages and disadvantages were equal. Classifying the respondents according to party sympathies, the results were that 74% of the supporters of the Liberal People's party believed that the advantages were greater than the disadvantages. For the remaining parties, the figures were: 72% for the Swedish People's party, 69% for the coalition party, 55% for the Social Democrats, 49% for the Center party and 32% for the People's Democrats.

The Nordic parliaments have debated the Nordek issue to a varying extent. The Danish Folketing and the Norwegian Starting have held several debates devoted especially to the market questions; the debates have opened with accounts given by government representatives concerning the negotiations. In the Finnish parliament and the Swedish Riksdag on the other hand, the Nordek plan has not been discussed to any great extent. So far in Finland, it has been discussed in parliament once (in December 1969), while in Sweden it has been dealt with on intermittent occasions but a special Nordek debate has not been arranged.

The manner in which the governments have kept themselves informed of the view of the interest organizations has also varied in the four countries. In Denmark, Norway and Sweden the organizations have been urged to submit official comments. In Finland a formal procedure has been avoided and instead frequent informal contacts between the negotiating officials and representatives of the organizations have been relied upon. A system ‐ similar to that in Finland ‐ has also existed in the other three countries in addition to the official channels.

The interest organizations strongly supporting Nordek have been a united Nordic trade union movement and the Federation of Swedish Industries. Criticism or outright rejections have been conveyed by the Danish Council of Industry, the Federation of Norwegian Industries, and the farmers' organizations in Denmark, Norway and Sweden. Information about the attitudes of the Finnish organizations is not available.

The majority of the political parties in the Nordic countries have backed Nordek. Among the clearly positive parties are the four Social Democratic parties, all the Liberal parties (except the Danish Liberals), the Conservative parties in Finland and Sweden, the Christian People's party in Norway and the Center party in Sweden. The Norwegian Center party and the Danish Conservatives have been more hesitant, although increasingly more positive with the passing of time. The Center party in Finland and rhe Liberals in Denmark have mainly expressed negative points of view. The People's Democrats/Communists and the Social Democratic League in Finland and the Conservative party in Norway have been the most vigorous critics of Nordek.

The Swedish government, as far as one can tell, has been united in its support of Nordek. In the remaining three countries, however, clear differences in opinions have been discernible between the Prime Ministers, who have been mainly positive, and individual ministers who have been negative. The Danish Prime Minister Baunsgaard has not always shared the views of the Minister of Market Affairs, Nyboe Andersen, on Nordek; and on several occasions statements by Foreign Minister Karjalainen have differed from the views expressed by the Finnish Prime Minister Koivisto. In Norway differences in opinion between Prime Minister Borten and Minister of Trade Willoch have been markedly noticeable.

The Nordek debate has centered around five issues: (1) the Nordic customs union and the relations to the EEC, (2) agriculture, (3) fishery policy, (4) institutional arrangements, (5) the construction and size of the funds and the investment bank. The four countries have attached varying weight to specific problems. The Danes have often emphasized the importance of extensive cooperation in agriculture, have desired strong and nationally independent organs of cooperation, have advocated suspension of tariffs on certain industrial goods for an unlimited period of time, and have demanded as an absolute prerequisite for participating in the Nordek cooperation that it be compatible with future membership in the EEC. The Finns have wanted to retain their extensive trade with Eastern Europe and have demanded that consideration be given to their special agricultural problems, and have underlined their lack of interest in both EEC membership and association. The Norwegians have also demanded tariff suspensions for an unlimited period for certain goods, have put forward special requests concerning fisheries, and have stressed the importance of compatibility between the Nordic cooperation and EEC membership. The customs union has been the major Swedish demand during the negotiations.

The Nordek plans were brought up quite unexpectedly by Denmark, but even subsequently the negotiations have not been void of dramatic incidents. Most frequently the unexpected moves have come from Finland. Mr. Koivisto unexpectedly pleased the other Nordic Prime Ministers through his surprisingly positive statement in Oslo in October 1968 on the plan:; for economic cooperation between the Nordic countries. But four months later, President Keklionen during a talk with Prime Minister Erlander in Helsinki expressed the Finnish opinion as being that the tempo of the negotiations had become too fast, The real surprise did not occur, however, until the beginning of December 1969 when Mr. Koivisto announced that the planned Prime Minister meeting in Turku was called off. A month and a half later the Finnish government gave the go ahead sign to continue the substantive negotiations aiming at a settlement at the session of the Nordic Council in Reykjavik. The Finnish conditions for proceeding with the negotiations included clear reservations concerning the EEC. The Nordic Prime Ministers agreed in Reykjavik on a time table for signing the Treaty, which meant that this would occur around 7 March 1970. Subsequently the Nordic parliaments were to ratify the Treaty during the spring session the same year. On 24 March the Finnish government, however, announced that it could not sign the Treaty because of the other three countries' active interest in the EEC. Instead the matter was passed on to the new government to be formed after the election. The following day Foreign Minister Karjalainen expressed doubts as to whether Nordek could at all be carried out before the end of 1970. Once again external forces have played a decisive role in formulating the market policy of the four countries. Danish and Norwegian hopes of starting negotiations soon with the EEC combined with the Finnish reservations made in January and March 1970 make it difficult to judge the prospects of Nordek being implemented. Nordek cannot be said with certainty to be a fact until the ratification documents are safely‐ in the custody of the Foreign Ministries of the four countries. March 25, 1970