From openness to defence: Norway’s interaction with EU geoeconomic policies in the Single Market

The EU’s recent efforts to safeguard its economic mark a notable shift from its traditional stance as a champion of liberal economics and multilateralism. Increasingly, the EU has focused on addressing external challenges and defending common interests, exemplified by the Economic Security Strategy, which aims to maximise the benefits of economic openness while minimising the risks of economic interdependence. This geoeconomic turn has spurred a new research agenda about the causes and consequences of EU’s political change on relations between the EU and China, between the EU and the US, and on the specific policies that have arisen in the intersection between security and trade. Less attention has been paid to how the EU’s closest allies are affected by this shift. This paper examines how Norway responds to the EU’s geoeconomic mobilisation. Norway is not an EU-member, but deeply integrated in the single market through the European Economic Area-agreement. However, because Norway is not part of the EU’s customs union and outside the EU’s common commercial policy, several of the EU’s new policies in the realm of trade present a particular type of challenge, which might unintentionally erect barriers within the single market. Our study traces two specific policy processes to see how Norway approaches the new wave of defensive trade policy measures in the European Union: the regulation on screening of foreign direct investments and the foreign subsidies regulation. By investigating how Norway navigates the in the nexus between trade, security, and the single market, we also aim to shed new light on how the EU demarcates the protection of collective interests, while maintaining its strategic partnerships.