opinions
Arne O. Holm says
When Politicians' Home Addressese Determine What Is a National Crisis
Comment: A couple of weeks ago, military convoys thundered northward in Norway, fully loaded with fuel, personnel, and other supplies. They were heading to the military exercise Cold Response. If this had happened today, or while headed for more serious events than an exercise, they would not have gotten there in time.
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This is a comment written by a member of the editorial staff. All views expressed are the writer's own.
This time around, a bus has caught fire inside one of the many decrepit tunnels along the main thoroughfare between the North and the South of Norway, the European route E6 through Nordland.
No one knows how long the only road between the North and the South will be closed this time, except that it will take several days.
12-hour detour
The only possible detour, via Sweden, is also long. The other day I drove from Bodø to Hamarøy, a stretch of 230 kilometres that takes just over three hours to drive. Today, I would have spent 12 hours on a 900-kilometre detour. Although who knows, because parts of the detour via Sweden are currently also closed.
The E6 is often closed due to accidents or other reasons for shorter or longer periods several times a month. And when it is closed, it does not distinguish between civilian and military vehicles, or the swarm of semi-trailers transporting goods between north and south.
The fact that this round of closed roads happens on what is the first day of the Easter holiday for many, completes the chaos.
If it had been a real war, they would have arrived too late.
One of several problems with the road is that very few members of parliament live along this part of the E6.
Therefore, the demand for upgrades has been ignored for decades. The gravity of the situation only dawned on those who view the North with southern eyes when Russia went to war against Ukraine. Following the war, a long-standing civilian demand to connect the infrastructure between Northern and Southern Norway was met responsibly; with sudden security policy.
Not that this was a new issue.
Suddenly acute
It just suddenly became acute and visible to a political majority. Therefore, parts of the stretch will be improved at some point after 2030.
This time, the E6 closed a few hours after the Norwegian parliament discussed the heavily contested gas and diesel prices affected by another war, the US war against Iran. Entirely without a consequence analysis or budget coverage, a political majority found a few billion kroner to be used to lower fuel prices.
Some wanted to go much further and lower the food VAT at the same time. Sylvi Listhaug, leader of the Progress Party, managed to entice "half" the Norwegian press corps to go on a shopping trip to Sweden to emphasise the point.
As a journalist, I would have felt great discomfort following in the footsteps of a member of parliament and parliamentary leader who, with a salary of around NOK 1.7 million, is forced to go to Sweden due to high food prices.
It is thought-provoking how geographically determined the crisis understanding is.
The real crisis
Because the real crisis is not about the price of gas and diesel or Swedish food, it is about how the most significant security policy and vulnerable part of Norway is systematically drained of people. The working-age population in the North has nosedived over the last ten years. If you don't take refugees into account, the situation becomes dramatic.
This is especially dramatic because the Armed Forces in the North, together with the healthcare system, are crying out for people. In the revised defense plan presented today, the build-up of Finnmark Brigade in particular is to be accelerated. This requires people. A lot of people.
Everyone knows that, but the understanding of the crisis comes to a stop somewhere on the way from the South to the North, just as all traffic between the North and the South has now come to a complete halt.
If we combine the emergency decision to cut fuel costs and subsidize electricity prices through the 'Norway Price', where not a single krone goes to Northern Norway, we are looking at around NOK 16 billion.
The crisis understanding stops on the way from south to north.
The amount is large enough to remove the state income tax in the North five times over.
Can feel safe
Alternatively, it is enough to reduce the overall income tax burden in the North by about 40 percent.
I don't know what it costs to improve the tunnels along the E6 to connect Norway, but you would have been able to make some progress with NOK 16 billion.
With lower taxes and a functioning infrastructure, the dramatic population decline in the North would have been turned into growth.
So that the rest of the country could feel safer in case of war.
And the members of parliament could continue their journey to Sweden on four-lane freeways to save a few bucks on bacon.
Anything else would be a pure and utter crisis.
