| dc.description.abstract | The outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine, February 24, 2022, drastically changed the security environment in Europe. As a response to the war, the EU have taken a number of unprecedented measures, as well as several European countries have adapted to the new and changing security landscape with policy changes and realignments. This is perhaps especially noticeable within the Nordic countries, with Denmark abolishing their op-out from EU’s Common Security and Defense Policy, and Sweden and Finland submitting their applications to join NATO.
As opposed to the rather big changes in neighboring countries, this is not equally the case for Norway, which outwardly looks relatively unchanged. Although Norway is not formally an EU member, it is a country highly integrated in the EU, coming close to being a “quasi-member”. This makes Norway an especially compelling case to investigate further in regard to views, focus and support towards the EU, after what can be considered a turning point in European history. The goal of this thesis is therefore to explore if, and subsequently in what ways and to what extent the outbreak of the full-scale war in Ukraine have contributed to a shift in the political discourse and public opinion on the EU in Norway.
This thesis mainly takes form as a qualitative case study, with a qualitative content analysis of parliamentary debates, as well as it investigates political party programs and official party statements and decisions. Additionally, it considers public opinion polls, also providing some quantitative descriptive statistic of the general Norwegians’ views towards the EU.
Key findings of this thesis show that the outbreak of the war in Ukraine did contribute to some changes in the political discourse and public opinion in Norway, although not considerably. The analysis illustrated a shift in the political discourse, in terms of the political parties and members of parliament being more resolute and expressing their stances on the EU more clearly. The analysis also revealed that the debates about the EU were more extensive, as well as the focus of the debates had a shift in focus, for instance with more focus on security. Public opinion polls also showed an increase in positive support towards the EU in the surveys conducted shortly after the outbreak of the war. | |