Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg talked to television channel TV2 about the European financial crisis and its possible impacts on Norway for 2013.
– We are not invulnerable and immune, it is easy to make mistakes that may also create problems in our own country, said Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg to TV2.
Reminding Sweden and Denmark have already begun to feel the crisis with rising unemployment, Stoltenberg believes that Norway must prepare for difficult times even if the country has a better position than other European countries.
– Millions of people in Europe are losing their jobs and experiencing the insecurity of housing and income. There’s still a pretty dramatic economic situation in the world, said Jens Stoltenberg.
The Prime Minister also said the very uncertain economic situation will affect Europe in 2013 worse by pointing out the figures from Eurostat that shows nearly 19 million people in the Euro zone are unemployed.
– We are vulnerable to it, because we are a small, open economy. It is very dangerous to believe that Norway has always been vaccinated against financial problems. Even if oil revenues are good to have, we still had the financial crisis and banking crisis in Norway in the nineties, continued the Prime Minister.
– We have to be prepared for the crisis, because we are so dependent on how things go in our neighboring countries. We sell half of what we produce here to other countries. When the economy is bad in other countries, they buy less of the goods and services from us. Therefore, we are vulnerable, concluded Stoltenberg.
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