The uneasy relationship between Norway and the process of European integration

The construction of the European Union has always experienced difficulties in triggering enthusiasm within the European nations. According to Jacques Delors, "it is difficult to fall in love with a common market". Even though the European Union (EU) is now much more than a free trade area, the Euro-skepticism is still a widely spread phenomenon within all the peoples of Europe and this crisis of legitimacy endangers its durable existence and efficiency. However, despite this apparent lack of popularity, the EU has never ceased to attract new members and partners. The ECSC-6 or EEC-6 has increased progressively, but the target is still to become a part of the EU-27 nowadays. The construction of the European Union managed to unify almost the entire the European continent in fifty years, despite the Iron Curtain, the repeated crises, the plurality of political visions of the states and the difficulty in reaching popular support. Even though the process of European integration managed to attract Great Britain, as well as the former dictatorships of Spain, Portugal, Greece, the majority of the Nordic countries and the former "popular democracies", it wasn't successful in convincing a majority of the very skeptical Norwegians. Since Norway's first negotiations for EEC-membership in 1962, twenty-one countries became members of what is now the European Union.