Norway and the EU: The Significance of Membership

Europe is changing and we are now seeing an emerging discussion about Norway's relationship with the EU. This is necessary, since Norway's agreements with the EU were negotiated at a time when the world looked very different. The current government decided in the spring of 2022 to put together a committee to assess experience with the EEA agreement over the past ten years (the last time a comprehensive investigation/evaluation of Norway's agreements with the EU was conducted was in 2012). In addition to being tasked with assessing Norway's experience with the EEA agreement, the committee was asked to assess the experiences of Great Britain (since Brexit), Switzerland and Canada in regards to their agreements with the EU. The government did not asked the committee, however, to carry out a corresponding assessment of what a possible Norwegian EU membership would mean for different sectors. Although it is not difficult to find a political explanation for why the membership option was not included in the mandate the government granted the committee, there are no good research-based justifications for this, as membership is indeed an option. With this special issue, we therefore wish to supplement the committee's report, which is scheduled to be published in the spring 2024, with an analysis of the membership option.