Note: This is the English version of an Op-Ed published in Aftenposten, Norway's leading newspaper on the 21st of October entitled "Conspicous by its absence"

Norway’s economy is heavily exposed to events and policy shifts around the world, even more so than that of other small countries.  The exposure mainly from trade and the investments of the oil fund. Yet, there is an absence of strategy on how best to manage this exposure.

Norway can only do so much against the daily travails of the oil and financial markets that it is so exposed to. However, it can have much greater influence on global and particularly European financial reform efforts that are changing how these markets work.  Inexplicably, it has chosen to forgo such influence.

As part of the single market, from which Norway derives significant benefits, it is obliged to adopt most EU financial regulations into its domestic legislation. However, it has little formal influence on what form these take. Norway does have an ‘observer’ status in some regulatory groupings; this brings a ‘voice’ but no ‘vote’.

Please click below to see an archived webcast of the European Parliament Testimony of Re-Define Managing Director Sony Kapoor on Financial Transaction Taxes. This hearing was conducted by the full ECON committee on the 2nd of December 2009.

Sony Kapoor European Parliament Testimony on Financial Transaction Taxes

For the speech please look at time stamp 16:20:10 to 16:27:20 and for answers to MEP questions please look at time stamp 17:01:20 to 17:09:00.

A copy of the submitted written Testimony of Mr Kapoor will be available both here and on the European Parliament website on Monday the 7th of December. 

Other details of the hearing can be accessed here. 

Re-Define Managing Director Sony Kapoor sat down with the Real News Network on one of his visits to Washington DC and gave a series of wide-ranging interviews on the difficulty of getting the right financial regulation, the extreme fragility of the economic recovery, the sheer scale of the problem of rising unemployment and stagnating wages, the problems of collective action faced by institutions and governments and a number of other topical issues including the question of what should be done with institutions such as Goldman Sachs. These can now be accessed in our Audio/Video resource section http://www.re-define.org/audiovideo.