Read news from:
Austria
SHARE
COPY LINK

POLITICS

Myriad municipalities want to fuse together

A majority of Norway's top local public servants would like the country to fuse some of its more than 400 municipalities to create bigger administrative districts, according to a survey published on Wednesday.

Published: 24 July 2013 16:13 CEST
Myriad municipalities want to fuse together
Oslo city hall. File photo: Vegard Grøtt/Scanpix

The Kommunal Rapport magazine asked near half of the country's municipal councilors (rådmenn) about their views on a potential reform of Norway's municipal boundaries. Some 58 percent said they thought their municipalities should fuse with its neighbours. 

Half also said they liked the Danish model, in which the national parliament decides what number of municipalities there should be, but that already existing local authorities decide how they should join together.

"It is totally normal that a municipality cooperates with other municipalities in up to 30 or 40 areas," said Harald Danielssen, head of the The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (Kommunesektorens organisasjon – KS), which represents municipal and county employees.

"That is an indication that there are many areas which the municipalities don't feel they can reasonable take care of by themselves." 

Three of four survey respondents said that the government would likely tackle municipal reform after elections in September.

Member comments

Log in here to leave a comment.
Become a Member to leave a comment.
For members

POLITICS

How Norway’s 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s government won’t unveil its budget for another few weeks, but several proposals, such as income tax cuts, have already been made public. Here's how foreign residents in Norway will be affected.

Published: 19 September 2024 12:06 CEST
How Norway's 2025 budget will impact foreign residents

Norway’s budget for 2025 will be unveiled on October 7th. It is the last budget the current government will present before the general election next year.

Tax cuts

Finance minister Trygve Slagsvold Vedum said this summer that those on ordinary incomes would pay less income tax in 2025. How much income tax will be cut is currently unknown.

Tax residents of Norway currently pay a flat tax rate of 22 percent, and then a further “bracket tax” based on how much they earn. For example, those who earn up to 670,000 kroner per year pay a four percent bracket tax, while those making between 670,001 and 937,900 kroner pay a 13.6 percent bracket tax.

READ ALSO: How does Norway’s bracket tax for income work?

Norway’s tax card system would also be tweaked to benefit those with part-time jobs. Next year, you can earn up to 100,000 before paying tax. This could benefit foreign students in Norway.

Finances

The government will continue its electric subsidy for households next year. The government announced its intention to continue the policy this spring.

Currently, the state covers 90 percent of the electricity price above 73 øre per kWh – or 91.25 øre including VAT.

Residents of Norway’s 212 least central municipalities will have 25,000 kroner of their student loans written off per year from 2026.

Those in Finnmark and Nord-Troms will have their loans written off at a rate of 60,000 kroner a year.

READ MORE: The incentives to attract people to northern Norway

Crime

The government will spend an extra 2.8 billion kroner on fighting crime. Of this, 2.4 billion kroner will go directly to beefing up the number of police officers in Norway. Some 90 million kroner would be put towards cracking down on financial crime.

Furthermore, 405 million kroner would also be spent on fighting youth crime, by creating a fast track court for young offenders and creating more juvenile detention places.

Travel changes

Up to 2.9 billion kroner extra spending will go into maintaining Norway’s rail infrastructure. Signal and track failures have been a constant source of delays in east Norway, where services regularly struggle with punctuality.

Over 12 billion kroner will be spent on Norway’s rail system.

Norway could finally reveal more details on its proposed tourist tax. The country’s industry minister, Cecilie Myrseth, has previously said that a proposal would be tabled this autumn.

The minister didn’t say whether this would be related to the raft of proposals included in the budget.

A potential tourist tax has long been promised by the current government as part of the Hurdal Agreement it was formed on in 2021.

As part of its budget cooperation with the Socialist Left Party, the government will be required to assess whether a subsidy scheme should be introduced for long-distance bus travel in Norway.

Bus routes without an alternative, such as train, could be subsidised under the scheme.

SHOW COMMENTS