There was a great deal of interest from public agencies, other involved parties and the press for the seminar organised by the Norwegian Directorate of Immigration (UDI) on Monday on the challenges involved in the EEA expansion seen from a labour-migration perspective. 

 

The UDI’s two presentations were given by Mr Nordby and consultant Catherine de Coster of the Strategy and Documentation Department. Other speakers were from the Ministry of Labour and Government Administration, the Ministry of Local Government and Regional Development (State Secretary Kristin Ørmen-Johnsen), the Labour Inspection Authority in Oslo, the FAFO Institute for Applied Social Science, the Confederation of Norwegian Business and Industry (NHO) and the Norwegian Confederation of Trade Unions (LO).

 

In his presentation, the director general reviewed developments in immigration from the candidate states in recent years. Since 1999, the number of work permits has risen from less than 10 000 to almost 20 000 in 2002, mostly granted to seasonal workers from Poland and the Baltic countries.  

 

“Regardless of whether those who come do so for short or long periods, Norway has to be prepared, in relation to both integration and control. If we are to reduce the regulation of immigration, we must introduce better control of who is actually here”, said Mr Nordby.

 

In her talk, Catherine de Coster looked in more detail at current regulations and procedures, and presented proposals for improved control, including a duty to report to the police, feedback from other public agencies (rules of confidentiality are an obstacle to this at present) and increased use of random checks and follow-up control.

 

Agreement that the market for services will be the greatest challenge
The Government has made it clear that, in principle, it does not want to introduce transitional arrangements for the purpose of taking ordinary employment with enterprises in Norway. All the speakers agreed that there is little risk of this type of immigration having a major impact on the Norwegian labour market. They also agreed that the greatest labour-market challenges would come from the services market, where transitional rules cannot be applied. This means that enterprises from the entire EEA area can submit tenders based on the wage level in their own countries for contracts opened for tenders in Norway. Here lies the greatest threat to jobs in Norway, through Norwegian enterprises losing out in competition with enterprises that are legally entitled to operate at considerably lower wage levels than apply in Norway.  

 

 The LO representative proposed a number of measures the organisation sees as possible ways of combating such a development, including introducing legislation requiring tenders to be based on the applicable collective agreement/standard in the country in which contracts are opened for tenders. The LO also announced that it would be contacting the Government with a view to establishing a collaboration between the social partners and the Government aimed at preparing the Norwegian labour market for the changes that will result from the EEA expansion. Both State Secretary Ørmen-Johnsen and the NHO reacted positively to this initiative.