So you REALLY want to move to Norway?

You have to understand 1. Why do you have to read this here? 2. There must have been a lot of complaints from foreign workers in Norway denied benefits to trigger the EFTA Surveillance Authority's cases against Norway regarding the way the foreign workers' work, taxes, national insurance contributions and "residency" was being administered by the Norwegian State and 3. Norway can continue creating new rules that apply only to foreign workers that, even though they may ultimately be ruled "illegal" by the EFTA Court, will have served their purpose by helping Norway subsidise the cost of the 1.2 million Norwegians residents on some kind of benefit by taking national insurance contributions from foreign workers whol will be forever denied benefits.

First of all read this ..

http://www.eftasurv.int/press--publications/press-releases/internal-market/nr/1476

then understand this ....

" . A person is deemed to be resident if his/her stay in Norway is intended or has lasted for at least 12 months. It is a condition that the person in question has a residence permit in Norway."


Now you may have already learned the UDI web site says if you are an EU / EAA citizen you "don't need" a residence permit and merely need to register so, if you apply for a residence permit, you'll be smilingly told "oh, you don't need one". Despite me having a son in Norway, my only house in Norway and most of my work in Norway, my application to RENEW my existing residence permit failed because my work took me out of Norway occasionally meaning I was in Norway less than three months at a time so I therefore didn't NEED a residence permit even though refusing to renew my residence permit stopped dead in its tracks any progress I'd made towards permamnent residence in the nation of which my son was a citizen but I wasn't.


Obviously, to merely assume that Norway could, even if it wanted to, assimilate you, as a foreign worker, into it's welfare, health, tax and civil systems is wildly unrealistic. If laws were merely being badly or wrongly interpreted by Norwegian civil servants, it might be another matter but looking at official Norwegian web sites and the ways the laws are drafted and worded shows quite clearly the intent and thinking behind them. 


So one part of the Norwegian government (Skatteetaten) takes tax and national insurance contributions from you ... or authorises your employer to do that then UDI makes sure you don't have a residence permit so you cannot be part of the Norwegian National Insurance Scheme ... (see above) and just to make sure, NAV has the rules mentioned by the EFTA Surveillance Authority ruling you should have read above ..


If your tax deductions are stolen, will the Norwegian firm that took your taxes and didn't pay them to Skatteetaten be prosecuted by Skatteetaten? Ask Skatteetaten for examples of Norwegian companies they have prosecuted for taking foreign (and Norwegian) workers' tax deductions and merely stuffing them into their pockets ... go on!!! ...... ask them here ... http://www.skatteetaten.no/no/Hvem-er-du/Presse/


So, if you think you're going to be protected by international or EU laws that forbid Norway from having rules that stop foreign workers getting benefits in return for the National Insurance Contributions deducted from their wages, think again ... even if the current rules are rescinded by the Norwegian State, other laws that can also ultimately be ruled illegal by the EFTA Survaillance Authority can be drafted which will take a few years of operation to generate complaints to the EFTA Surveillance Authority who will then spend a few years going through their procedures by which time yet more laws designed to serve the same function will exist and so it will go on ...


Now if you are refused benefits after the bar in Ibiza in which you have been working goes bust, you can sleep on the beach. When you're refused benefits and haven't been paid in Norway, where do you sleep, even in the height of summer, where, if you're lucky, you may wake up with hypothermia? Outside of summer, you may not wake up at all.